Facing Fears
by Hatter of Madness
Summary: Cedric Diggory may have survived at the hands of Voldemort, but that doesn't mean that life is easy. Now at eighteen, he has to survive his N.E.W.T.s, the reign of Umbridge, and the wrath of his father. And when it comes to his first love, Maddie Lewis, life has never been more chaotic. SEQUEL to FEARLESS. Cedric x OC. Set in OotP, rated T for language and mild violence.
1. Like Father, Like Son

**~*~Facing Fears~*~  
by Hatter of Madness**

* * *

It always started the same way.

Voices. Dark, cold, sinister voices.

_I want to kill,_ the colder of the two would say, though nothing was visible but blackness. _Let me do it, let me finish off our friend. I want to kill him. I want to destroy him. Let me. Let me kill him._

_You are weak, _the other voice would add._ You can't. Tell me what it is you want._

_Kill._

_Kill who?_

_Kill the spare!_

And then, a single light would appear, illuminating nothing but the blackness. But from out of nowhere, a cauldron would appear, and smoke would come billowing out of it, and—

Voldemort rose up, out of the cauldron, yelling, "Kill the spare!" over and over again, and at long last, his evil mousy assistant would appear from behind him, wand out…

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

A jet of green light would appear—

But before anything else could happen, Cedric was awake and in bed in a cold sweat, screaming at the top of his lungs.

On that particular night, his mother and father came running in, his mother trying to calm him and his father there, it seemed, to make sure Cedric wasn't actually being murdered. His father held his wand in hand, the tip illuminated, apparently ready to attack who- or whatever was harming his son.

"Cedric, it's okay," his mother said, wiping sweat off his brow with a hand as gentle as her voice. "It's alright now. Go back to sleep."

Cedric was breathing so hard that he was sure he was going to hyperventilate. Before his mother could do anymore, he was up out bed, hands behind his head and his arms extended to form two v's at his sides. He was pacing the room, trying to push all thoughts from his mind. He closed his eyes; even the posters of the Irish Quidditch team or pictures of his school friends on the walls reminded him of what he had seen.

"I don't want to go back to sleep," he finally said, with a completely dry mouth. It seemed that all of his body's liquids were on his forehead in perspiration. He sounded oddly childlike with this outburst, but he didn't care. Sleep meant nightmares, nightmares that he didn't want.

"Cedric, you need to sleep."

"_I don't want to go back to sleep!_" he repeated, shouting at his poor mother. He had turned on his heel so fast and was suddenly rigid, hands at his sides once again. His skin was stretched too tight over his white knuckles, his hands clenched into fists. "Okay? I don't want to sleep! I don't want to have nightmares anymore! I didn't sign up for this! I don't want this!"

Realizing what he did from the look on his parents' faces, he leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, resting his head on his knees and covering the top of his head with his arms, groaning as he did so. _God, _if those nightmares didn't stop soon, he was going to go insane.

"Amos, go downstairs and get the potion that Katie made," Lucy said quietly. Amos nodded and left the room and Lucy crouched on the floor next to her son. "Cedric, I know what you're going through…"

"No, you don't Mum!" Cedric snapped his head up to attention, his eyes bloodshot and the sweat on his forehead mixing in with his hair. "You weren't there, you didn't see what I saw that night! You've never had a dark wizard wanting to kill you before!"

"Alright, so I don't know," she said as calmly as though he had whispered it to her. "But I understand that this isn't easy on you. Your father and I just want to help you."

"By keeping me locked inside all day? By not letting me talk to my friends? _Dad won't even let me see my girlfriend!_"

"Cedric." Her voice was so stern that it immediately silenced him. When she spoke again, she sounded oddly sad. "We're just trying to do what's best for you right now."

"And what's best for me is keeping me away from people that I love and care about?"

"We're just trying to shelter you from the rest of the world right now."

"I'm almost eighteen bloody years old, Mum!" He jumped up off the ground, walking toward his bedroom door. "I need to go for a walk."

"Cedric, please stay in the house. It's dangerous out there." She was standing now, too, but even though Lucy was tall, Cedric easily towered over her.

"I don't care! _I don't care!_"

"Cedric, stop yelling at your mother."

Amos' voice made both of them jump, both at its suddenness and its calmness. How long he had been standing in the doorway was anyone's guess. In one hand, he held a large goblet full of the purple potion that Madam Pomfrey had forced Cedric to take following the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. It put him to sleep quickly and easily, and made sure that he didn't have any dreams—therefore eliminating the risk of a nightmare. Katie Lewis, the next door neighbor, was a Healer and was therefore skilled in making potions. She had offered to reproduce the tonic—with a touch of hostility in doing so.

"I'm going back to sleep," Amos said, "and the two of you should, too."

With that, he left the room. Lucy started to follow, but stopped just inside the doorway, turning back to her son, who was now sitting in his bed again. "Are you alright, dear?"

"No."

Lucy came to sit on the edge of Cedric's bed, grabbing the goblet off his bedside table and trying to hand it to him. "Wait," he ordered.

She lowered it slightly, still holding it tightly to avoid dropping it. "Mum, please tell me the real reason you and Dad won't let me leave. Why you won't let me talk to my friends."

"It's to protect—"

"Yeah, maybe _you're _trying to protect me, but Dad sure as hell isn't. He doesn't want me talking to Maddie, does he?"

It had been nearly ten days since Cedric had even _seen _his girlfriend, let alone spoken to her. He wondered for a moment how she was holding out—if she had been so troubled by what had happened that night, too. The more he thought about it, the more his heart ached for her—for her presence, her safety, her happiness. His heart _really_ went out to Harry, though. Sure, Cedric had _seen _everything that had happened that night, but Harry _lived_ it.

Lucy sighed, staring down at the ground sadly, then looked back up at her son. "Your father can be difficult at times…"

"Yeah, I know that."

"Cedric, please try to be reasonable. Go back to sleep." She handed him the goblet, then stood up and kissed his forehead. "I'm so worried about you, you know. Just go back to sleep. I love you."

"Love you, Mum," he said, and—seeing that she was waiting for him to take a drink—drank most of the potion in one gulp. Quickly, sleep threatened to claim him, and so he set the goblet on the bedside table before he could drop it on the floor.

Just as the concoction promised, he did not have another dream that night.

* * *

The following morning, Cedric was awoken from a deep sleep by the smell of breakfast down the stairs. He stretched, looked over at his watch on the bedside table—it was half nine in the morning—and then sat up in bed. The goblet that he had set down the night before was gone, but he could see a framed photo of him and Maddie on his table. His friend, John, had taken it, but he couldn't recall the moment. All that mattered was that they were staring at each other lovingly, their fingers intertwined. Even though the picture moved, they did not look out into the real world, they were so focused on each other. Tears sprang to his eyes, which he dried quickly. God, he missed her.

He went down the stairs quietly, feeling very rested for the first time since he had returned home from school. The night before had been the first night that his parents had been able to coax him into drinking the potion, though he did have to admit it was very kind of Katie to make it for them. He hoped that she was forcing some into her daughter as well.

He paused on the stairs when he heard what his parents were discussing.

"I'm _worried_ about him, Amos."

"You're saying that like I'm not worried, too, Lucy…"

"You have a funny way of showing that _you're _worried, Amos."

"I'm his _father,_ Lucy, of course I'm concerned about…"

"_Would you put down the paper and look at me!_"

There was a crinkling of the paper, but there was some hesitation around it. Tired of his parents' petty argument, Cedric finally stepped into the room as his father was about to snap back at his mother.

"Good morning," Cedric said awkwardly. They both looked up in surprise.

"Good morning, dear," his mother said, jumping up to hug him and leading him to the table. She had been bending over backwards as of late to make sure that his every need was catered to, it seemed. "I made you breakfast, sweetheart…"

"Not hungry." Both of his parents were staring at him as he pushed the blue plastic plate away from him. He looked up at his father and said, "The paper say anything else about me? Or are they tired of writing about Harry and me nonstop?"

Amos immediately went white. "How did you know about that?"

Cedric laughed, though he wasn't amused in the slightest, then said, "You two can try all you want, but I hear you whispering about me. Think I've lost my mind, have you?"

"That's not what we think at all…" Lucy started, but Amos interrupted her.

"When it comes to these nightmares and things? No—but I'll admit I think you might be a bit too old to be screaming over a _nightmare._"

"Yeah, you try to have a demented man try to kill you in your sleep!" Cedric snapped. "And tell me how you like it!"

"Cedric, _stop it_," Lucy spat, but not long after, Amos had seated (and silenced) her with just his voice.

"When it comes to your—ahem—_love interests_, however…"

There was silence for a few moments as the sheer power of Amos' words settled on the family. Lucy pretended that he hadn't spoken by staring at her blue mug of coffee as though it had just spoken to her. Cedric's mouth had dropped open in surprise, the anger clear everywhere else on his face. Amos, however, looked like he had said too much, though he and Cedric were staring each other down like they were sworn nemeses.

"You think I've lost my mind because I'm in love?" Cedric finally asked, the sentence coming out as more of a statement than a question.

"If that's what you like to call this relationship, then yes."

"Yeah, how much longer are you going to keep me locked up in the house like a prisoner?"

"Until you finally come to your senses and break up with your…_girlfriend._"

"You know, it's a little hard to do that when you won't let me see her. You know I haven't seen her since King's Cross?"

"I'm just trying to end this nonsense once and for all!"

"_Nonsense?_" Cedric was out of his chair (knocking it to the floor, he rose so fast) and had crossed the room to his father in seconds. "I don't know what your problem with my girlfriend is, but I love her more than anything else in the world, and nothing you say is going to change that fact!"

"My problem? You want to know my problem?"

"Yes, of course I do!"

"My problem is the fact that she's _thirteen years old,_ for starters. My problem is that the two of you—and her especially—are too young to even grasp what love is. And my problem is that you're not mature enough for a relationship."

"I am almost eighteen years old!"

"Then maybe it's about time you started acting like it, Ced!"

"Yeah? And maybe it's time you started _treating me_ like I was! I can't stay in the house forever, Dad! And why in the world would you not let me talk to my friends? I know my friends have been writing to me, Dad, so let me see their letters!"

"Yes, your friends have been writing to you, and _yes,_ I have their letters!"

The mug that Lucy had been holding in a white hand suddenly dropped off the table toward the floor. However, ever since Cedric had returned home for the school year, both she and her husband had gotten into the habit of having their wands ever present, and so she broke the mug's fall with a call of, "_Aresto Momentum!_" She immediately set the mug back on the table and cleaned up the mess on the floor ("_Scourgify!_"), but the sudden outburst had caught her family's attention, and so they stopped arguing long enough to look at her. In the quiet, she finally asked, "What in the world are you talking about, Amos? You've been _keeping his mail?_"

"For his own good!"

"How in the world is that helping him?"

"He doesn't need to know what's going on in the world…"

With his parents distracted, Cedric ducked out of the room again, bounding up the stairs and tearing into his parents' bedroom. There, at the foot of the bed, was his father's briefcase. He snatched it up, fell onto a corner of the bed, and tore through it. Eventually, his fingers fell on a stack of parchment that was bound together. Letters.

They all had his name on them, and by looking at the handwriting, he could determine who each was from. There were three or four from Joseph…one from Eleanor…two from John…one from someone with feminine handwriting (was that _Cho?_)…no less than five from Christopher O'Malley with the _Daily Prophet…_

He went to set his father's briefcase back on the floor, but it slipped out of his grasp and fell on its side. Out fell pieces of ripped up parchment, which he dropped to the floor and picked up quickly, trying to stuff it back into the briefcase before his father could come to investigate the noise. But he found that they were _more _letters addressed to him when he saw the valediction on one…

_Love always, Maddie._

All of the torn up letters were from Maddie—who lived next door and apparently had resorted to writing him letters in order to communicate to him.

He found all of the pieces of the pale pink parchment (_where_ she got such colors were beyond him) that the valediction belonged to, piecing them together on the floor to read what else was written…

_6 July, 1995_

_Dear Cedric,_

_You haven't responded to a single one of my letters in the past week, so I don't know why I'm even bothering to write this one. I'm starting to think that they haven't been getting to you._

_I just want to be sure that everything is okay with you. I've been worried sick lately, and I went to your house today, but your father_

He trembled with rage, but continued reading.

_your father answered and demanded that I leave._

_I'm not cross with you for not answering me, because I know that you can't have an easy life at the moment. But I miss you something terrible, and even though I have reason to believe that you haven't seen these letters at all, I'm starting to get worried over whether you still care about me. If you see this at all, could you send a response back? I really want to catch up, but it's a little difficult with this setup._

_I just want you to know that you're always in my thoughts. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you for so long. I l-_

This part was smudged out, but it appeared to say 'I love you', and the smudge appeared to be too big to come from one of Maddie's delicate fingers. It had to be his father.

_Just please write me back so that I know that you still love me._

_Love always, Maddie._

He grabbed all of the other ripped up parchment from the briefcase, finding that all of the letters from Maddie had been opened—even though it was perfectly possible to destroy them whilst still in their envelopes. His father had _read _all of her letters, but simply set aside the ones from anyone else.

Cedric stood, knocking all of the other letters that sat in his lap onto the floor. He went down the stairs at a brisk pace, finding his parents still arguing in the kitchen.

"You're treating him like he's some prisoner in Azkaban!"

"And you haven't exactly been letting him have free reign, either, Lucy!"

"That's _different. _I'm _worried _about what would happen if…"

"_What is this?_" Cedric snapped, walking up to his father and thrusting all the ripped up parchment onto the table. "_What the bloody hell is this?_"

His father adjusted his glasses, picked up a scrap of one of the letters, and examined it. Calmly, he lowered it, saying to his son, "I see you've found the collection."

"You've been _reading _my letters from my girlfriend?"

"You're not missing much, they're basically all the same. She's a very melodramatic girl, this one…"

"Why wouldn't you tell me she's at least been writing to me? You know that she thinks I don't love her anymore? Do you know that?"

"Oh, and what a shame that is!" his father said in mock horror.

"_Shut the hell up!_"

"Cedric! Do not speak to your father that way!" Lucy cried, snapping out of her stupor.

"Why have you been intercepting my mail?" Cedric asked, ignoring his mother.

"To protect you from what's happening with You-Know-Who!"

"You're afraid my friends are writing about her, aren't you? That maybe they're trying to pass her mail along?"

"That has nothing to do with it—"

"Then why are all of Maddie's letters ripped up? Why did you read all of them? _Why would you let her think that I don't love her?_"

"_Because_ _you_ _don't love her!_"

"You don't understand!" Cedric had never shouted louder in his entire life. He was sure that he was going to break the window panes or the glass in his father's spectacles, what with how loud he was shouting. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his mother recoil at the sound of his voice, but it was too late to stop talking now. Forced to continue, he snapped, "Don't you remember going through this, too? Don't you remember what it's like to love someone for the first time in your life?"

"You can't love someone as young as she is!"

"_Don't you remember what you said when I was nine years old?_ Because _I _remember. I remember quite clearly that _you said _that we'd probably end up _married _one day. And now that I'm actually in a relationship with her—you're angry with me!"

"_You were nine years old! _Of course I'd say something like that when you were young! I never expected you to take it _seriously!_" Suddenly, the full weight of what Cedric had just said hit Amos full force, and the color drained from his face. "Don't tell me now that you want to _marry _her…"

"Well, there's only one other option for this relationship," Cedric said hotly, though he honestly had never considered the matter.

"That's it!" Amos snapped, grabbed the _Daily Prophet _off the table, raised it above his head (Cedric braced himself, fearing for a wild moment that his father would strike him with it), and threw it down on the floor. "That's it! Since you're so convinced that you're _in love _with this girl, and because of this argument—you're grounded!"

Cedric could feel his blood turn to ice in his veins. "You can't do that!"

"Why not? Give me one good reason why I can't!"

"Because you…" He struggled for an answer, realizing that he really didn't have one. "Because…because I…"

Amos smirked, feeling as though he had won. Lucy, however, was finally on her feet, running up to her husband and placing a hand on his arm. "Amos, maybe you should reconsider this. He's been through a lot lately and this won't help him with…"

"If he insists on being in a relationship with a child _and _on acting like a child himself, then doesn't he deserve to be treated like a child?"

"This is ridiculous," Cedric muttered under his breath.

His father, hearing him, rounded on him. "What was that?"

"_I said this is ridiculous!_" he shouted, feeling braver than he had felt in his entire life. "I don't understand what your problem is, but I love Maddie! _I love her,_" he repeated, crossing his arms over his chest when his father opened his mouth to interrupt. "And nothing you say is going to change that!" Changing tactics and hoping to subdue him, he said in a calmer voice, "Look, Dad, I get it that it makes you uncomfortable, but right now, I think that we need each other more than ever. I mean, with You-Know-Who to worry about, and the new school year, and the possibility of a war… We _need _someone to comfort us, to keep us company. And regardless of whether or not I'm in a relationship with her, she's my best friend. You're just keeping me away from my best friend. Can't you understand that?"

His father seemed to be thinking it over. His mother stood watching, waiting for a response, powerless over her husband's decision. Their breakfast sat waiting on the table, completely forgotten by the little family.

Finally, Amos opened his mouth to speak—but what he said made Cedric's skin crawl. "I say two weeks should be a sufficient punishment, wouldn't you?"

"You've _got _to be kidding me," Cedric groaned, turning away from his father.

Amos narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you happy, Cedric?"

Surprising the three of them, Cedric turned back to his father just as quickly as he had turned away from him. Though he kept his voice quiet, there was a bit of an edge to it as he said, "Yes…with _her._"

His parents both stood rooted to the spot. Lucy was watching Amos, as though waiting for a reaction, but Amos seemed to have a million gears turning in his head. At long last, he delivered an ultimatum, which made Cedric want to start screaming at him all over again:

"That's it. If you don't break up with her in the next few days, then you can consider yourself fatherless. I will _disown you _if you don't break up with her."

Amos left the room at that point, going up the stairs to his bedroom, Lucy following hot on his heels, begging him to reconsider this decision. Cedric stared at where his father had stood, feeling more conflicted than he had ever felt in his life.

At long last, he reached onto the table, grabbing all of the ripped up parchment, and went into his bedroom. To prove a point, he slammed the door as he entered, hoping that it made his father cringe. He sat down on the floor, dropping all of the ripped up parchment on the ground and trying to form a coherent letter out of pieces of blue parchment. When he finally did, he sat back to read what it was that Maddie had been trying to tell him just the day before. There was a smudge in the middle of it again, but he assumed that this also must have read 'I love you'.

_9 July, 1995_

_Dear Cedric,_

_I'm starting to get extremely worried, not just about you but also about how you might be feeling. Please, Cedric, if you see this, write me back. I've missed you so much and I just don't understand why you haven't made a single attempt to contact me. We haven't seen each other in so long that I would do anything to bring us closer again._

_If I've done anything to make you this upset, I'd really like to know what it is so that I can apologize to you. I didn't mean to upset you by anything I've done or said in the past. I really didn't; I love you too much to purposely hurt you. But the fact that I have to write letters to you when I live next door breaks my heart; I'd much rather see you in person, but apparently I don't have that privilege._

_Obviously, though, I've done something to upset you. Please, Cedric, please let me know what that is._

_I love you,_

_Maddie_

_P.S.: I know you haven't been reading the _Daily Prophet,_ but I've wanted to warn you that there's a new reporter who's taken over for Rita Skeeter. His name is Christopher O'Malley, and he's dreadful. He's written all sorts of crazy stories, like that you've gone to Switzerland to live in exile. Though with the way I haven't heard from you, I'm almost starting to believe it myself._

When he finished reading the letter, tears were pressing at his eyes and he wiped them away furiously. _She thinks I don't love her anymore._

He thought about what had happened downstairs. He could hear his parents arguing across the hall, and suddenly felt as though he had no energy to get up. Using what was left of it, he reached under his pillow, where a folded up picture was at. Unfolding it, the first thing he saw was a beautiful, flawless smile. Maddie's picture in hand, he curled up into a ball on the ground and stared at it.

He felt oddly childlike, but at the same time, he just wanted to stay like this. It was like Maddie had said: they hadn't seen each other in so long that he was now desperate for _anything _that made him feel close to her. Her picture would have to suffice.

He just couldn't shake the thoughts from his mind. He loved Maddie more than anything else in the world, but by the same token, he feared that his father was serious: if Cedric didn't break up with her, then Amos was going to disown him.

* * *

**Hello all. :)**

**The start of this story has been in the works for roughly two weeks now. I wanted everything to be perfect so that I won't have to have three or four rewrites like I did with Fearless. If you've stuck around since I last updated Fearless, hello! If you're new to this story, I strongly encourage you to go read my other story, Fearless: Love Causes It, first. Otherwise, you'll probably be a little confused.**

**And you'll have time to do so. I'm going to be super busy for the rest of this month—even more so than I was towards the end of Fearless—so you probably can't expect another update until April. I was going to postpone the posting of this story, but I did promise it on March 15 and there was no way of telling everyone otherwise. I'm super sorry about this delay, but what can you do?**

**Hopefully, I can update this in a timely manner, and I just want to thank you all for the continued support on Fearless, which has received about 1,500 hits since I last updated. Please be sure to review! :)**

**- Hatter of Madness**


	2. Daddy's Little Girl

As Maddie put the letter into the break of her owl, Olive, a voice in her head reprimanded her, _This is a waste of time. Cedric hasn't answered the last eight letters. You're just suffocating him. He obviously doesn't care anymore._

"Maybe this time will be different," she said aloud, both to calm her fears and to have _something _to believe in.

Ever since the night of the final task of the tournament, Maddie had had it rough. She knew that Cedric couldn't have it easy, considering what he had experienced that night in the maze and the graveyard, but that didn't stop her from being plagued by nightmares every single night. Hers, she assumed, were probably a bit different than the ones that he undoubtedly had: her nightmares were really just one that happened every single night. She would have to relive that awful moment when he and Harry emerged from the maze.

The only difference was that in her dreams, Cedric wouldn't wake up. Professor Sprout never came to the common room to collect her to go and see Madam Pomfrey, and the nurse wasn't tending to her boyfriend when she came in. If she didn't wake up in time, she would have to look at his coffin, made from the same kind of tree that Cedric had taught her to climb: a beech tree.

But no matter how often these nightmares plagued her, she just couldn't shake the fact that Cedric had not made a single attempt to contact her—at least, as far as she knew. Not once had he tried to arrive at her doorstep or send a letter, and not once had she seen him outside of his house at all. The drapes on his curtains were almost always tightly drawn, too, so she couldn't do what they did when they were younger: communicate wordlessly between the two houses. This was quite a feat considering the distance between them, but they made it work.

Now, there was no trace of her long time best friend at all. It was as though he had disappeared, just as that ridiculous reporter for the _Daily Prophet_ had said. She had saved all of the clippings of his reports so that her parents wouldn't just throw them out, and they were all tucked away in various places. Some were in her pillowcase, others in the drawer of her bedside table. Regardless of where she placed them, though, anytime that she saw the name 'Cedric Diggory' in the paper, she was sure to tear it out to keep for herself.

Suddenly, the sound of a bird's wings flapping forced Maddie out of her thoughts, and she looked at the windowsill, where Olive was watching her impatiently with big yellow eyes. She had never sent the little bird out into the real world to take the letter to Cedric, and her pet was growing restless. She clicked her tongue, extending her arm, and the bird hopped onto her wrist.

"This is for Cedric." She opened the window with one hand and cast Olive out of it, watching sadly as the little tan bird made her way to a location that was only about a thousand feet away.

She then watched with fear as her father, who stood on the ground between the two houses, noticed the bird flying and made a bird call, interrupting its flight as it soared down to meet him. He pulled the letter from its beak, and Maddie only stood by the window long enough to see him examine the name on the envelope.

Her legs just could not carry her fast enough down the stairs—if only she could Apparate, she would have been there that much sooner. She had to get there before her father could read the letter… He wouldn't like to see what was printed there… And if he saw what she had written, she'd definitely be getting herself into trouble…

But she wasn't quick enough. As she threw open the door to the house, she saw that her father was already reading the letter. She continued to propel herself forward, hoping to stop him before he got too much farther…_What do I do, what do I do…_

Braiden looked up and saw her coming, folding up the note and sticking it in his shirt pocket. "Maddie Lewis, what are you doing outside?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest. "What have your mother and I told you about leaving the house?"

"You-Know-Who isn't likely to attack me with you here," she said, her eyes locked on the pocket.

"You don't know that, young lady. Get back in the house."

"What are you doing with my owl?"

He froze. She had to get him to give her the letter back… She did not move her eyes from his shirt pocket, but he was attempting to look her in the eyes. This was no easy feat, not just because she refused to match his gaze but also because he was much taller than she was. She had inherited her mother's height—or, more correctly, lack thereof.

"We need to have a talk, young lady," Braiden said, putting a hand on the small of her back and leading her into the house. Olive flew back into Maddie's open window and disappeared out of sight. Maddie kept her eyes focused intently on the ground as they entered the house. The door slammed behind them, and as it did so, Maddie suddenly felt like a prisoner. Her insides turned to ice as she realized what had happened. _Caught._

She glanced at the window on the far left wall, wondering if it always seemed so foreboding. She tried to get away from her father once he had directed her into the safety of her house, but he wasn't done; he seated her on the sofa before he called up the stairs, "Katie, get down here."

A few moments later, the door from the kitchen opened. "I'm already downstairs, dear," Katie said, her dirty blonde hair tied back in a ponytail (but several strands were falling in her face) and her hands slightly purple. "This had better be quick. I'm making that potion for Amos and it's simmering right now…"

"This is about Amos' son, actually, and about our daughter."

Katie stopped talking, understanding loud and clear, then said, "Give me five minutes to finish up in the kitchen, and then we'll talk."

Braiden nodded before Katie had a chance to disappear again. He seated himself in the armchair across from his daughter, looking at her intently for the remainder of their time alone together. Maddie fidgeted uncomfortably, knowing what was to follow soon thereafter.

When Katie finally returned, sweat on her brow and her hands even more purple than they were before, she told them all, "It should be good for now. It has to sit for three hours before it'll be done."

"Good." Braiden's gaze had not wavered off their daughter, but he stood as he spoke, beginning to pace the room. "Would you like to tell your mother what that note said, or should I read it?"

Maddie's throat suddenly tightened; speech seemed to be an impossible task. Her father was waiting for an answer, but her mouth was completely dry and she couldn't speak. Finally, Braiden tired of waiting.

"Very well."

Braiden took the folded up parchment out of his shirt, held it at arm's length (Katie had been trying to tell him that he needed reading glasses for quite some time, but he was extremely stubborn and refused to do so), and squinted at the letter, then cleared his throat and read:

_"Dear Cedric,_

_"I don't know what to do anymore. I know that you haven't been able to leave the house, and neither have I, but this is starting to become ridiculous. No, that's not quite the word I'm looking for. It's overwhelming. So much has happened lately and I want to be able to talk to you about it, but it doesn't look that'll be happening in the near future._

_"I know that I ask this every time, but I must ask again: why haven't you responded to me? I know that my letters are at least making it to your house, because I've watched Olive deliver them every single time, and she always comes back without anything. The fact that I even have to write to you when you live so close to me makes me feel so uncomfortable. It makes me wonder if something's happened to you._

_"What we had this past year was far more magical than even what we were taught at Hogwarts. It seems so silly that we would let that just die out. Speaking of, I don't want the train ride to school to be the first time we speak to each other all summer._

_"Please, Cedric. Please talk to me. I'm starting to give up hope that anything we ever had was real. I'm almost wondering if maybe this was all a lie, if perhaps with all that's going on, you don't have time for a girlfriend anymore. That's fair enough if you don't, but I'd really like to hear it from you, instead of having to resort to this._

_"I suppose I'll stop writing to you after this if I don't get a reply. I'm not doing either of us any favors by continuing this practice. I just wish I knew where I stood with you._

_"I love you, even if you're not returning the favor._

_"Forever yours, Maddie."_

Braiden stopped speaking, dropping the yellow parchment onto the table before him, then he looked up at his daughter. Maddie had her legs crossed at the knee, bouncing one nervously. She was breathing deeply, trying to avoid tears. Her words were even more painful to hear (especially when she questioned whether Cedric was even okay or if something had happened to him), but that didn't even compare to what she knew was coming.

"So," her father said, in a falsely cheery voice. "Still talking to your boyfriend?"

She finally regained her voice as she said in a monotone, "Trying to."

"Let's talk about him, shall we?" He stopped pacing, coming to stand directly before his daughter, who looked down at her hands which she had folded in her lap instead of looking up at him. "How is he?"

"I don't know," she said quietly.

"You don't know? Hasn't he written to you? From what it sounds like, you've been trying awfully hard to get his attention."

"He's—been busy," Maddie said, more to placate herself than to answer her father.

"Busy? From what I can tell, he never leaves the house. Not exactly an ideal boyfriend, wouldn't you say?"

Maddie had nothing to say at all.

"In fact, let's talk about that, shall we?"

Maddie avoided eye contact with her father, folding her hands in her lap, and staring at the ground. "What would you like to know," she said in a deadpan. No inflection—nothing to let him know it was a question.

"Well, to begin…why you're in a relationship with anyone when you're thirteen years old?"

She shrugged. "I fancy him."

"According to this," he said, pointing to the letter on the table, "your feelings are a bit stronger than just _fancying_ him."

"I _did _fancy him, at one point."

"And now, I believe it says that you love him?"

She again said nothing.

Her mother finally joined in. "Maddie, you really are growing up entirely too fast. You don't seriously think that you and Cedric are actually in love, do you?"

"Yes," she breathed.

"What was that?" Braiden asked.

She didn't feel like answering her father's question, so instead she said in a flat voice, "Where is my owl?"

"_Where is my owl?_" Braiden repeated. "Are you seriously going to ask about your pet with what's at hand?"

"She needs to eat… I haven't fed her yet today…"

"Your bird can wait, young lady. This is slightly more serious."

She sat rigid, trying to get the conversation back to Olive. If she could get her parents focused on the bird, maybe they'd forget about what was happening with her and Cedric. There was still another chance…

"It's actually very serious, Dad. She's a Fraser's eagle owl and they can eat as many as a dozen mice per day, and…"

"_Forget about the bloody bird._"

Maddie's hands clenched into fists by her sides on the sofa. Her mother, who had been uncharacteristically silent, finally opened her mouth to speak, having gone very white.

"Do you honestly think that your bird eating is more important than what's happening with you and Cedric? Do you?"

"I'm going to assume it's not."

She was obviously testing her parents' patience, as her father slammed a hand down on the table and yelled in her face, "When the hell did you turn into a snippy teenager? While you were off snogging the neighbors' son, I'm assuming? Do you even realize the severity of this situation? Cedric is seventeen years old, Maddie. He's a man. You're thirteen. You're not even over the threshold from childhood to womanhood."

"You know that Muggles go to prison over this sort of thing?" Katie interrupted. "If we were Muggles, we could press charges and then your boyfriend would have to face the consequences, because he's of age and you aren't. He would go to prison. And wouldn't you feel sorry for that?"

Feeling foolish as soon as the statement left her mouth, Maddie said, finally breaking the monotone that she had developed, "Actually, Mum, Muggles come of age a little later than wizards do. I figured you'd know that because of Gran. There wouldn't be a problem until September…"

"Maddie Stefani Lewis! For Christ's sake!" Braiden said, going extremely purple in the face, even more so than Xenophilius Lovegood's dirigible plums. "What has gotten into you lately? You've never behaved like this in the past!"

She didn't have an actual answer, so she settled on, "I'm just frustrated."

She didn't mention that having people taunting you day in and day out, some that she didn't even know, made you develop a keen way of defending yourself. It felt like her parents were taunting her, too, what with the way that her parents were speaking to her.

"And how do you think we feel having a delinquent for a daughter?" Braiden snapped.

"I'm hardly a delinquent, Dad."

Well, as far as he knew, she wasn't. He didn't need to know that she had been skiving off lessons, sneaking around school and Hogsmeade… God forbid he discover that she was spending alone time with boys in the girls' lavatory. He also didn't need to know that the boy in particular who liked to talk to her in the bathroom wasn't Cedric and, at the time, was not her boyfriend.

"I beg to differ," her mother said. "That's not what Amos has been telling me."

Maddie's face reddened. Amos Diggory, as far as she was concerned, was her biggest enemy at the moment. So long as she and Cedric were together, and probably even if they did end their relationship, Amos was not going to be doing her any favors. It was his opinion that she was behaving like a child and he had been the informant when it came to how her parents found out about their relationship.

"You'd trust Amos over your own daughter?" she asked.

"You haven't exactly been very trustworthy in the past few months, young lady," her father said. "How long has this been going on with Cedric and we didn't know about it? At least since February, according to Amos."

She didn't bother to tell him that it had actually been a year and a half.

"There are more important things going on right now than just my love life," she said. "You know that some people think that there might be a war starting soon? Unless you don't believe Cedric about You-Know-Who returning?"

"You know just as well as I do that we believe him," her father said, "but there are more pressing issues at hand right now. Such as the fact that you're running around with him like you're a grown woman."

"With all that's going on, I'm as good as."

"Not while you're under this roof, you're not. And especially not as long as you're _dating_ Cedric Diggory."

"Why are you two so upset with me?"

"Look, dear. I'm not as upset over this as your father is," her mother said, fidgeting uncomfortably on the armchair she sat in. "I think the fact that you're dating is totally acceptable. It's a completely natural part of growing up." Maddie sat up straighter, thinking that maybe… "But with Cedric? A grown man? What would you want to date him for?"

"Do you have anything to say to defend yourself? Do you?" Braiden asked.

Her father had his arms folded over his chest, glaring down the end of his nose at his daughter, whose petite features were identical to his own. However, he did not look at her such as a father would; he was scowling at her as though she had just announced her desire to drop out of school to join You-Know-Who's army.

She stared at her father, fighting with herself and wondering if she dared to say what she was thinking. She decided that she was daring enough to, and, before she could think to change her mind, opened her mouth and said, "We've been best friends since I was four years old. We were inseparable. You should really have seen this coming."

The vein protruding in her father's forehead looked like it was going to burst open as he glared at her, looking at her like she wasn't even his child. His breathing was much shallower than normal, and he continually opened and closed his mouth as though searching for what to say. Finally, he pointed up the stairs and snapped at her, "_Maddie Stefani Lewis._ You have just crossed the line. Go upstairs right now, to your bedroom. I'll be letting Amos know that you are _never, _under _any circumstances_, allowed to see his son ever again."

Maddie's mouth dropped open in shock, and she looked to her mother for support. But Katie sat looking at her daughter in such a way that said quite plainly that she agreed with her husband. Maddie therefore stood on shaky legs and ran up the stairs to her room, slamming the door behind her. It wasn't until she was sitting cross legged on the ground with her face buried in her hands that she realized she was crying. Down the stairs, her parents continued talking as though nothing had happened. In fact, rather tan discuss what had just happened, Braiden asked Katie about the potion that she was brewing for Amos and Lucy.

_They don't even care._

After a long time, Maddie moved herself to her bed, staring at the empty bird cage in the corner. As though on cue, Olive soared through the window with her latest kill dangling in her beak by its tail. _Well, at least you don't have to worry about feeding her now. _She flew into the cage to eat as Maddie tried to catch her breath from her sobbing.

Everything was falling apart.

Cedric hadn't spoken to her in the better part of two weeks, nor had he returned her desperate attempts to contact him. She glanced at her school bag, wondering what she'd have to resort to in order to get over this…

And now her parents were saying that she could never go near him ever again.

There was a piece of her that felt horrifically empty at this announcement. She didn't know how she was going to get through the coming days with the knowledge that if she went anywhere near Cedric, she was going to be punished. It just didn't make any sense and it was hardly fair.

Maddie pulled her knees to her chest, staring at the open window next door. She could see through it quite clearly, but Cedric's bedroom was empty. Nobody was in it; the door was shut tightly, too, so it didn't seem that anyone would be entering it for some time.

She wondered for a moment whether he ever did the same thing that she was doing now, if he would sit on his bed and stare at her bedroom window, too, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Or, if he stared when it was empty, whether he would be thinking about the two of them being together again. He had to have _some _reason as to why he wasn't speaking to her.

Still, this was the only piece of him that she had anymore. He made no attempts to visit her or contact her at all. Staring at his bedroom window through hers was all that she had to calm her worrisome heart. Had something happened to him? Was that why he wasn't talking to her? Had he disappeared completely?

She jumped up off the bed when, across the way, she saw Cedric fling the door open to his bedroom and slam it, precisely as she had just done. Her heart started to race a bit. _He's okay._ He was glaring at the ground, uncharacteristically angry. He turned to look at the wall to Maddie's left (his right), then slammed his fists against it angrily. She sat at the windowsill, hoping to grab his attention, waiting to see if maybe, just maybe, if she could get him to notice her, if they'd be able to communicate again. She wanted to calm him down, because something was obviously troubling him. But after he hit the wall, he simply crossed the window and pulled the blinds shut tight without so much as looking out it. If he had glanced up, he might have noticed her sitting at the window, waiting for him. But he had avoided it as though it was spattergroit.

Tears filled her green eyes yet again. That action said it all. He really didn't love her, not as much as she thought he did.

She continued to sob as she dug through her schoolbag for _something, _anything to clear her head. Her fingers fell on a note that Cedric had scrawled her once last year that she had discovered in a Transfiguration lesson: _I just thought that I'd let you know that you looked so beautiful this morning. You seriously make me the happiest man alive. Have a good day, sweetheart._

The pain that she felt over their separation was so tangible that she couldn't stop crying, instead staring at her white fingertips and how they gripped what she had found as though if she dropped it, the worst thing imaginable would happen to her. She supposed that it might, no matter what she did.

They'd probably end up losing each other forever.

* * *

**I know I said you probably couldn't expect another update until April, but I had a bit of time this weekend and decided to pump this out as quick as I could so that you wouldn't have to wait so long. If I have more time, then I'll update again.**

**The next chapter is going to be extremely heartbreaking, so I'm sorry in advance for whenever I get around to uploading it. If I can, I'm going to try to update once a week in the future so that you arne't just sitting around waiting for me. With Fearless, I had a deadline I wanted to adhere to (Valentine's Day) so I forced myself to pump out up to two or three chapters a week. I think I'm going to slow down a little bit with Facing Fears, because now I'm becoming super busy with college stuff. It's kind of just hitting me that I'm almost done with high school.**

**That being said, thanks for sticking around and waiting for me. I hope you remember to review. :)**

**- Hatter of Madness**


	3. I'll Stand By You

Cedric spent much of his time in his room, sulking. If he didn't have nightmares about You-Know-Who, then he had them about losing Maddie, and he really didn't know which was worse. As far as he was concerned, from the sound of her letters, she was already lost.

The night before, he had dreamt that she had run off to be with Harry again, but then she was murdered by You-Know-Who. As Cedric held her lifeless body in his arms, begging Harry to do something to revive her, You-Know-Who finished off Harry, leaving Cedric with nothing to do but sob. He awoke in a cold sweat, screaming yet again, with the visions of the wand in his face, the sinister voice saying the words.

_Kill the spare._

His mother came in then, begging him to go back to sleep, but his father was markedly absent.

Cedric fell asleep again after being forced to drink more potion. When he awoke the next morning, both of his parents were gone, but he found a note from his mother on the kitchen table: _Cedric, your father had to go into work early and I had a few errands to run. We'll be back later. Mum._

He went to the cupboard, found a box of cereal, and poured himself some, sitting down at the table and staring at his breakfast. He wasn't terribly hungry; besides, his mind was in fifty different places and the bowl before him was not one. It wasn't until he was halfway through that he realized he forgot to pour the milk. Those days, it seemed he'd forget his head if it wasn't attached.

When he was finished eating, his mind flashed to his friends, whom he hadn't spoken to in weeks. With his parents gone, he stole up the stairs to find his letters from his friends that his father had hidden again. If his father had simply stuck them back into his briefcase, he'd never find them…

But then, in the second drawer of his dad's sock drawer, he found them all, held together by some twine. Greedily he took them out of the drawer and headed down to the breakfast table yet again. It took nearly half an hour to read them all. From just the two days since his argument with his father, three more letters had arrived, one from Joseph and two more from Christopher O'Malley.

Though his friends expressed concern over him and Christopher O'Malley made many requests to talk to him, Cho's letter made Cedric roll his eyes. She was asking about how he was feeling and said that she couldn't stop thinking about him. The parchment smelled strongly of perfume.

He was a little surprised when, a short while later, there was a rap on the window. It seemed a little late for the post…

But the tan owl outside the window wasn't from the post office. It was Olive—Maddie's bird.

Cedric scrambled to the window, opened it, and took the note from the bird. It took off without giving him a second glance.

The note from Maddie was just that: a note. No envelope, no long messages, no salutation or valediction, nothing but four words written on the scrap of parchment:

_Please talk to me._

His heart… It was as though it had shattered into a million pieces. Apparently, she had given up hope that he'd respond, and did he blame her? As much as he loved her, he had certainly been a lousy boyfriend lately.

No, not just lately. He would never forgive himself for wanting to keep their love a secret and for cheating on her. He wondered whether Maddie and Cho were even still affected by it.

Cedric went looking for some parchment and a quill. When he finally found one, he scrawled a quick note in response to hers: _Be here by eleven o'clock._

He stole into his parents' room yet again, finding his father's owl, Leo, in his cage. Leo squawked loudly when Cedric entered. The owl and the boy were not too fond of one another, though that may have been in part due to the creature's age and disconcerted appearance. One of the bird's wings was much shorter than the other and his feathers were slightly geographical. Cedric wondered whether he would survive the journey, even if it was just a round trip next door. Still, it was worth a shot.

He suddenly remembered how little he liked his father's bird when he tried to take it out of the cage. It bit him sharply on the finger before he had a decent grip on the stupid thing. He gritted his teeth, grabbed it with one hand, and stuck it under his arm. Leo flapped his wings, squawked loudly, and clamped his beak down repeatedly on Cedric's arm in protest. When they went down the stairs, Cedric forced the window open and tried to shove Leo out of it, but the bird continued to protest violently.

"Come _on_," Cedric snapped. "This is important. Take that next door—take that to Braiden." He didn't imagine that Leo would recognize Maddie's name, but he was scared that the letter would end up in Braiden Lewis's hands and not his daughter's. He finally succeeded on shoving the owl out the window, letting out a groan as he did so. Why his father had adopted such a violent bird was beyond him.

Cedric watched as Leo flapped haphazardly, crossing his fingers. If the letter even got next door, it'd be a miracle. Luckily, though, Leo made the journey there in one piece—and even got the note to the proper recipient, as evidenced by the way he fell awkwardly in through Maddie's open bedroom window. Cedric ducked away from the window then, changing out of his pajamas into some normal clothes and sitting down at the table again. He was there in time to see Leo swoop back into the house—who decided it was time for an air attack on Cedric's head.

"Get—the hell—_away _from me," he snapped, watching the bird disappear up the stairs. _God, we have to kill that stupid thing._

With the bird gone, he could finally focus on what was at hand. First, though, he shut the window, feeling a cool breeze, then resumed his spot at the table. He kept his eyes on the clock, unable to keep still. There was no way of knowing if Maddie was even going to show up—although Merlin knew he wanted her to—but he kept waiting regardless. If his father found out about this, they'd both be in some deep trouble.

But that thought was pushed from his mind and his heart nearly beat out of his chest when, at precisely eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the door.

_Maddie._

He hadn't seen her in nearly two weeks. He therefore walked to the door on shaky legs, his heart hammering inside his chest. Before he opened the door, he looked in the mirror beside the entranceway, checking to see if he looked alright. To his great surprise, he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, then wondered if he was presentable enough for her. _What are you doing? It's just Maddie. She's known you for almost ten years now._

But the problem was that it wasn't _just _Maddie; it was that she _was _Maddie, and that his heart started hammering wildly in his chest when he saw her, and he felt so much more at ease around her, and he wanted nothing more than to spend every possible second with her.

He finally opened the door. Tears nearly sprang to his eyes when he saw her, partly due to the sad look in her own eyes but also because she was _there._ She looked almost as though she was afraid to touch him, so he practically leapt forward and took her in his arms, pulling her into the house as he embraced her. "Baby." He wanted to kiss her senseless, standing right there, but all he had the energy to do was say, "I've missed you…"

Maddie broke out of his grasp at that. "Then why haven't you tried to talk to me?" Now her voice matched her eyes: full of hurt.

He looked down at her, suddenly remembering what he had to do, and felt his heart shatter into two pieces. "Can we talk?" he asked as he shut the door.

"You're not going to tell me you don't love me anymore, are you?"

"What?" Then he suddenly realized what she meant: he hadn't contacted her at all in nearly two weeks, and back in November when he completely ruined their relationship, he had said something very similar to bring up Cho to her. "Oh, Merlin, no, sweetheart. No, I would never. It's just…" He didn't want to say it. Not now, not when he was finally looking at her, face to face, instead of in his photograph. "Do you want to sit down?"

"Oh—sure."

He laced his fingers with hers and led her up the stairs to his bedroom, sitting her down on his bed. Unable to wait any longer, he sat down next to her and took her chin in his hand, gently pushing his lips against hers. She folded against him, and before he could realize what was happening, they were kissing passionately. She placed her hands on his neck and he put one hand on the small of her back, the other between her shoulder blades. He had not kissed her in so long that now, he was not in a big hurry to end it. But then he remembered what he had brought her here for.

He finally placed the last kiss on her lips and said, "I've missed doing that so much, you know. I haven't stopped loving you."

"I haven't, either."

"Please remember that, okay? That I love you?"

"Why? What's going on?"

He avoided eye contact with her, instead taking one of her small hands in his and squeezing it. "Look, the reason that I haven't talked to you is that I don't have permission to. My parents don't want me to leave the house because of You Know Who. I'm not _allowed _to leave."

"I'm not, either," she said, and it took a moment for him to fully grasp what she was saying: by being in his presence, she was breaking the rules. If she was caught, she wouldn't just be punished for seeing _him, _but also because she had left the safety of her home.

"And my dad…well… My dad and I had a fight, see. We were talking about—about you and me being together. And he said that if we didn't break up…that I wouldn't be his son anymore."

She was listening attentively to what he was saying, apparently understanding what he was saying. This was evidenced by the horrified look on her face. A wizard disowning his child was almost unheard of; it was perhaps the biggest insult in the entire wizarding world, and not something to be taken lightly.

"So what you're saying is…"

He didn't want to say it. But what choice did they have? "That for the time being…we can't be together."

Tears slipped out of her eyes, but she nodded all the same. "I kind of expected that."

"But that doesn't mean that I don't love you," he clarified quickly. "Maddie, listen to me." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, placing his other hand on the nape of her neck. "I'm only doing this to protect you. I know that your parents have forbidden you from seeing me, too. I don't want you to get into any trouble on my behalf. I'm not worth that."

She was still crying even after this speech. Time for one last approach.

"At the very least, we can be together while we're at Hogwarts. Nothing is stopping us there."

"It just felt like a dream."

Maddie had spoken quietly, but Cedric had heard her loud and clear.

"What feels like a dream?"

"_Felt. _Our…you…me…" She struggled for a moment with what to say, but she took a deep breath at long last and came out with, "What we had felt like a dream. I never wanted to wake up…but it feels like I just have." Fresh tears sprang to her eyes at the conclusion of this speech.

Seeing how much she was hurting, he stood up and turned away (seeing her in pain broke his heart), staring at the floor where it was illuminated from his open window. "It's my fault, baby."

"Cedric, don't say that…"

"It _is_ my fault. Look, Mad, if I hadn't told you that I fancied you two years ago… If I had just let you live your life, this wouldn't be happening. Your parents wouldn't be looking at you like you were a…" He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. As he thought about all the times he stared into her eyes (the windows to her soul), there was no way he could match this description—this horrible description, the one he feared people at school had about her—with someone so pure and innocent. There was no way that he could say the word that was in his mind—not about her—so he just continued, "And my dad wouldn't be keeping me under house arrest… This wouldn't be…"

"Cedric," she said to interrupt him. He finally looked at her; his already broken heart was made even worse when he saw that tears were still running down her face. He sat down next to her, tilting her head down and pulling her close to him. He kissed her forehead, wanting to calm her down some, but also desperate for the way that she usually made him feel: unbelievably happy. Before he could say anything, she said, "That's one way to look at it, but if you hadn't said anything, we wouldn't be here now."

"That's what I'm saying," he said sadly.

"No, I mean, we wouldn't be _here._ With each other. We would have never fallen in love with each other. We'd still be wondering if we were meant to only be friends. We probably would have settled for someone else…and we'd probably be so unhappy."

There was definitely truth to the statement—and Cedric definitely had to say that being in love with Maddie was perhaps the most amazing feeling he had ever felt in his life. But was it worth putting her into so much trouble?

He took one of her hands in his, squeezing it gently. "I will fight for you."

"What?"

"I don't want anyone else. I just want _you_. And yeah, maybe feelings change and there's a chance that one day, none of this will have mattered, but right now, in this moment, I want you and I love you, and I will fight to have you."

"You will…"

"No matter what you think, you're not just some girl who grew up next door to me. You are so much more than that to me."

They were kissing again, and no matter how many electric sparks Cedric could feel on his lips—no matter how safe Maddie felt in his embrace—no matter how close the two of them got to each other, both was positive that kissing was much nicer when neither party was crying.

But it was hard to _not_ be kissing (or crying) when they hadn't seen each other in nearly a fortnight.

How were they so compatible? How could such simple contact with one another bring so much joy? How did they—two childhood best friends—end up here? And how was it that it just felt exactly right?

Cedric was still desperate for more when Maddie stopped him, asking, "Are you sure I was your first?"

"I beg your pardon?" His hands had been holding her face while they were kissing, but they fell to his lap when she had this outburst.

"Your first kiss? Because you're a little too good at it for me to believe that."

He smiled at her, though he knew their time together was going to be short. "I'm sure. I wanted to save it, for someone who was really important to me. And honestly, when we first kissed—you know how people say that it's something really amazing, that there are fireworks and it's really exhilarating? And that's how you know that they're someone special?"

"You felt that?" she guessed.

He nodded. "I don't know if you remember, but before we kissed the first time, I said I didn't know if I wanted to date you, not because I wasn't sure how I felt about you, but because I thought it'd be complicated. But after that, I knew. I knew that you were worth it."

"Maybe it's a good thing you admitted how you felt after all, then."

Cedric wanted to nod, but instead he held Maddie's neck in one hand and her hand in the other, capturing her top lip between both of his, just as they had been discussing. His stomach gave a familiar twinge, but it wasn't painful. It was a pleasant feeling, and he could feel every sense come alive as he held Maddie's hand—and as he connected of her in such an intimate way.

"It definitely was," he said when they finally separated. "Because I love you, Mad."

"I love you, too, Cedric."

Even though he didn't want to bring it back up, he had to get back to why he had brought her here. "I don't ever want you to forget that. Do not _ever_ forget that I love you, that you mean the world to me… That kissing you feels like heaven, and that you are the most amazing woman in the world. Even if we can't see each other for the rest of summer, I love you, baby."

"Oh, right." Tears were forming in her big green eyes again, and Cedric squeezed her hand especially tight.

"I know things look bleak right now," he said, "but I promise you, even if I have to wait until the first of September to tell you again, I will not stop loving you while we're apart. And this is killing me to tell you just as much as I'm sure it hurts to hear, but we just…can't be together right now. And I promise I will not stop loving you because you are my heaven and I…"

"Cedric Amos Diggory, what in the hell is going on?"

Cedric looked up and saw, in horror, his father standing in the doorway.

"Dad," Cedric gasped in shock, jumping up off his bed. "Dad, I can explain…"

"_You take your hands off of that girl right now._"

Cedric looked down and realized that when he stood up, he had pulled Maddie with him from his failure to let go of her hand. He dropped it as though electrocuted, then threw his hands up like he was under arrest. "Dad, I promise you, it's not what it looks like…"

Amos ignored him, pointing a finger at Maddie, who stared back at him unblinkingly. "You know, Braiden—_your father_, and someone I respect very much—told me yesterday that his daughter was to never come near my son ever again. And what a surprise it'll be for me to tell him what's going on."

"Dad, don't you dare tell him anything—she didn't do anything wrong, it was all my doing…"

Amos wasn't listening to it, instead glowering at Maddie, whose cheeks were glistening from her tears. "You," he said in a voice barely above a whisper but ten times colder, "get out of my house right now."

She stared at the ground and darted out of the room around him. Cedric followed after her, shoving his way past his father, calling, "Maddie, wait…"

The door slammed shut behind her.

Cedric stared after it for a moment, then turned around and went directly back up the stairs.

"Where do you think you're going, young man?" his father asked, following closely behind him.

"Somewhere far away from you," Cedric spat vehemently.

"Do you not understand what's going on? Do you not get it?" Cedric had opened the door to his bedroom at this point. He wanted to slam the door violently but, hearing that his father was still following after him, left it open as he sat down on his bed. "You want to see what's being written in the _Prophet_? Fine. Have a nice, good look at it!"

His father pulled the paper out of a pocket of his work clothes (Cedric suddenly remembered his mother's note; he had gone into work early that day, so he must have come home early as well), shoving it at his son. Cedric snatched it out of his father's hand, looking to see what was written there.

**_TRIWIZARD CHAMPION AND GIRLFRIEND MOST POPULAR WARLOCKS_**

**_HAVE BEEN M.I.A. SINCE HARRY POTTER'S OUTLANDISH STATEMENTS_**

_CHRISTOPHER O'MALLEY_

_Jul. 10, 1995_

_All four champions from the Triwizard Tournament have gone into a kind of seclusion following co-winner Harry Potter (14)'s announcement that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned. Unfortunately, that means the wizard world's it couple, Cedric Diggory, 17, and Maddie Lewis, 13, have also been missing in action._

_Ace reporter Christopher O'Malley had just one moment with Diggory on Tuesday morning, who gave O'Malley the time of day just to tell him, "It's too early to say just yet what might happen in the future. I must ask that you respect our privacy from now on." He refused to make a comment on anything else happening in the wizarding world._

_Friends of the couple disagree, as evidenced by comment from Diggory's best friend Joseph Dawson, 17: "He may say that it's all fun and games now, but most of us think that they're probably a lot more serious than they let on." But when asked just what nature the relationship might be, Dawson's only comment was, "They might be engaged as we speak. But I wouldn't know. Cedric's been really secretive all summer."_

_If only Diggory, Potter's co-winner in the Tournament, would realize that witches everywhere just can't get enough of the grey eyed Adonis, he might not be so secretive. The six foot one chiseled soon-to-be Hogwarts seventh year, who was sorted into Hufflepuff at the age of eleven, has certainly caught the attention of adolescent witches across Britain. From his tall, muscular frame to his eloquent speech, Diggory has stolen some hearts…including that of girlfriend Maddie Lewis._

_MADDIE LEWIS: INNOCENT GIRLFRIEND OR SECRET SEDUCTRESS?_

_What strikes Diggory fans everywhere is that his leading lady is a month shy of fourteen, a respectable difference of his seventeen years…_

Cedric stopped reading at this point, unable to think much else besides the fact that it seemed like Christopher O'Malley was in love with him, too. This explained Joseph's letter from yesterday, then, that he didn't speak to any reporters.

"That's not the only one, either," his father said, his arms folded over his chest, as Cedric lowered the paper. "I've got loads more if you're interested. Why in the name of Merlin would you speak to a reporter?"

"How the hell was I supposed to speak to a reporter if I haven't left the house all summer?"

"_Haven't left the house?_ Then explain what _she _was doing here."

"_She _happens to have a name, Dad, and in case it slipped your notice, Maddie was here. I wasn't at her house at all."

"Then how did she know to come here? Just stopped by for a visit despite her father's wishes?"

Cedric stood up and pulled back his sleeve, showing all the scars from Leo's bites and his talons scraping Cedric's flesh. "I took your bloody bird and sent her a letter. You know, those things my friends have been sending to me that you've been keeping for yourself? What were you planning on doing with them, kindling a fire?"

"_That's enough!_ For Merlin's sake, Cedric, you can stop acting like I'm doing some great injustice against you!"

"Well, you are! Can't you just forget about all of this and _let me be happy _for five minutes? Is that too much to ask?"

"When you sneak around behind my back and deliberately disobey me by bringing your little_ girlfriend _into this house after I _forbade _you from seeing her…"

"You know what? I brought her over here to break up with her, just like you told me to do! And now when I do _that, _I'm still in trouble? I don't understand what I have to do to please you anymore!"

Amos froze. "You broke up with her?" he said hopefully.

Cedric nodded, though his face was still screwed up in distaste. "If you had walked in about five seconds earlier, you might have heard me say that we couldn't be together. Unless you've got selective hearing, too."

From the way Cedric turned back to his bed and sat down on it, glaring at the floor, he was done with the conversation. With that, Amos turned and left the room, feeling horribly surprised at this little development. As much as he wanted his son to stop acting so disobedient and maybe just mature a little bit, he wasn't actually expecting Cedric to go out and sever ties with her entirely.

_Well…it's for the better. You know that._

He still couldn't help but feel a little unnerved by what had just happened.

* * *

**Sorry that this chapter sucks and is probably heartbreaking but still isn't as heartbreaking as I had intended I'm sorry— On the bright side, it is almost April, which means that (hopefully) my schedule is clearing up!**

**I've included some links on my profile to outside websites (besides FanFiction, I mean) where you can reach me. I had something I was going to say here and now I forgot and I'm sad with myself. :( Oh um p****lease note that the next chapter _may _have references to sex. Not between our two favorite characters and nothing too explicit, but I really haven't decided yet if I'll include it or not. T**he next chapter is also going to be super long, so if it takes me a while to put it up, it's probably just because it's taking a long time to write. Or I don't have time. Either, or. Please review! 

**- Hatter of Madness**


	4. Flashback to Forever and Always

Cedric barely glanced up when there was a knock at the door. Taking the lack of response as an okay, Amos gently pushed the door open, finding his son sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor with his hands clasped between his legs.

"Your mother wanted me to tell you that it's time for supper."

Cedric didn't respond.

"You're still upset with me, aren't you?"

Still no response.

Amos sighed. "Look, Cedric. I understand your frustration. But this is for the better. You have to know that. And you may think you love her now, but you have to believe me when I say that your first love is rarely your last." _If you can call it love. _"There will be others."

Cedric didn't look up or say anything still, but he couldn't help but think that, at least in that single, flashing moment, there was no other girl.

"Can you please consider coming out of your room to make your mother happy?"

His son still had no verbal response, but he got up off his bed and crossed the room behind his father. He knew the answer to that question just by his lack of response (and hesitant movement).

_Yes. But just for her._

As soon as the plates were cleared, though, Cedric was back upstairs in his room. Lucy cringed at the sound of the door slamming from where she stood at the sink, washing the dishes. She dried the one in her hand, then turned to her husband. "Whatever you think you're doing to help by making him such a recluse, it's not working."

"I didn't force him into his bedroom at all hours…" Amos started, but Lucy raised a hand to interrupt.

"Oh, just how you didn't force him into silence?"

"He's always been quiet…"

"Quiet? Yes. But silent? That's unlike him, Amos."

"He's just giving me the silent treatment. It's a teenager thing…"

"He's been giving you 'the silent treatment' for close on three days now. How much longer do you think it'll take for him to crack?"

"Well, he's already broken up with his girlfriend…"

Lucy groaned. "I cannot believe you made him do that, Amos."

"And why not?"

She slammed down the plate in her hand (Amos braced himself for it to shatter, only to discover that it was plastic) then glared at him, her arms folded across her chest. "He's _happy, _Amos. Merlin, he's so happy with her. That is so glaringly obvious that I don't understand how you haven't figured it out. And on the bright side, at least he's dating."

He cringed. "As if he needed to."

Lucy suddenly went red faced. "Fine. If you don't care about your son's happiness…then fine. I don't want to be having this conversation any longer." She was drying her hands so fast with a dish towel that it seemed like she was going to take all of the skin off. When her hands were dry, she threw the towel back in the direction of the rack and exited the room.

"Lucy, wait…" Amos called, but she was already up the stairs and the door had already slammed before he could get anything else out at her.

He groaned, thinking that maybe it _would _do him some good to talk to Cedric. While he wasn't prepared to accept the relationship, maybe if Cedric could just see things his way…

Besides, what was so special about this girl that he had to go around, deliberately breaking rules just to see her? Okay, sure, they were childhood friends. But did that mean that they were ideal partners?

When Amos went up the stairs, pausing outside Cedric's door, he saw that the lights were off. It wasn't all that late at night, but with Cedric's unusual behavior as of late, Amos wouldn't put it past his son if he was already in bed.

He went down the hall further to his own bedroom, finding Lucy already in her pajamas and in bed, reading something in the paper, using her wand to illuminate the page. "Anything good?" Amos asked awkwardly.

When he came over to the bed, Lucy laid out the paper for him to see.

**_HARRY POTTER, CEDRIC DIGGORY IN SECLUSION_**

**_HIDING FROM OWN LIES?_**

_CHRISTOPHER O'MALLEY_

Amos sighed heavily. "He just won't give it up, will he?"

"It's like no one has ever told him 'no' before," Lucy agreed, setting the newspaper down on the floor. "He's almost as bad as Rita Skeeter was."

Amos couldn't help but think that there was not a reporter alive who was worse than Rita Skeeter, but he didn't say so to his wife. Without another word to him, Lucy muttered, "_Nox,_" putting out the light from her wand, setting it on the bedside table and going to sleep. She was asleep within minutes.

It was not going to be easy for Amos to fall asleep, but he certainly could force himself to try. Sleep hadn't exactly been something he had been good at as of late: he was worried about Cedric, and whether Harry Potter's claims about He Who Must Not Be Named had been true; and then, there was what was going on with his son and Braiden's daughter to worry about; and then there were the strains that the relationship was putting on _his _relationship with Lucy; and just as he fell asleep every night, it seemed, Cedric's screams would wake him up.

Instead of trying to go to sleep, however, he stared out the window, then up at the ceiling. The two images juxtaposed themselves onto one another, reminding him of the ceiling at Hogwarts…

And suddenly, he was transported back to his own school days, thinking about a day in Potions in his fifth year…

* * *

"Pay attention, now!" Professor Slughorn called out to his class of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs on that particular day. "I know you're all very excited, what with the Christmas holidays coming up, but this is very important! _This_ you will need to know for your O.W.L.s at the end of the year!"

Amos Diggory, a fifth year Hufflepuff, was seated at one of the tables in the dungeon, trying but failing to listen to what Professor Slughorn was saying. He was rotten at Potions; that much, he knew to be a fact. But his teacher was droning on and on about how _important _this class was…

"Miss Mooney, I am sure your conversation with Miss Russo must be extremely important," Slughorn said a few minutes later to two girls, "but it can wait until after the lesson, can't it?"

"I'm sorry, Professor," the latter of the two girls said, staring down at the table to avoid looking him in the eye.

"This is an extremely important lesson, ladies," he continued, as though he hadn't made that fact clear enough. "Miss Mooney, why don't you go have a seat with Mister Spaulding and Mister Stratton—Miss Russo, if you would join Mister Diggory and Mister Connor, please."

The two girls gathered their belongings and began to move to their new seats. Scott Connor, one of Amos' best friends, groaned. "I don't want Lucy Russo sitting here," he muttered.

"Why?" Amos asked. While he didn't know Lucy personally, she was quite pretty…

"Because she's _so smart_," was the reply. "She's going to make us look bad!"

"I think she already looks bad enough," Amos began, about to say that she had been reprimanded for talking out of term, but Lucy was already seating herself at their table, looking a bit red in the face. For the rest of Slughorn's lecture, she ignored them completely, jotting down notes onto a piece of parchment. What she was writing down was anyone's guess, considering all Slughorn was talking about was the importance of O.W.L.s—the same speech he had been using to start class since the beginning of term. For a moment, Amos wondered whether Lucy was writing down what she didn't have time to tell Olivia Mooney before she was moved.

"Now," Slughorn said, forcing most of the class out of their stupor, "today, you will be beginning the Strengthening Solution, and we will be finishing it come Monday. Please begin now."

Amos searched frantically through his textbook for the page (had he been asleep the entire time? How could he have missed this?), but stopped abruptly when a pleasant voice said, "Page 413."

He looked up, but both Scott and Lucy were busy doing other things—Scott was gathering all of the ingredients from the proper page, and Lucy was tying her long brown hair out of her face. When he glanced over at Scott's book, however, he saw that he was on page 413, and so he flipped there himself.

"Thanks," he muttered to himself.

Lucy nodded back at him.

When Amos looked about the dungeon, most people seemed either extremely frustrated or extremely diligent in making this potion, but nobody looked as relaxed as Lucy, who was brewing hers as easily as she would make herself a bowl of cereal. She finished up quickly, watching Scott and Amos as though spectating a Quidditch game.

"Would you like some help with that?" she asked him after a while, watching as he nearly toppled over his jar of pomegranate juice onto the floor. She had grabbed it swiftly and nimbly, and Amos couldn't help but think she'd make a good Seeker for the Quidditch team (the one that he had been cut from) once their current one graduated…

"Sure," he said quietly as she, making sure Slughorn wasn't watching, carefully added three teaspoons of the juice to his cauldron.

They both reached to stir the potion at the same time, their fingers brushing against one another's. Lucy drew her hand back quickly, though Amos felt as though he had been frozen. "Sorry," Lucy said sweetly. "You can do it."

With a shaking hand, he stirred his potion. He reflected that this was the best potion he had brewed all year—and he somehow didn't think that was just coincidence.

Slughorn dismissed them from class a short while later, letting their potions brew over the weekend, and reminding them that they'd finish on Monday. Immediately after the bell rang, Lucy ran to catch up with Olivia, and the two girls giggled and whispered as though they had never stopped.

In their dormitory that night, Scott was sure to tell their other roommates about Amos' crush on Lucy Russo.

He didn't bother to correct him.

* * *

The Christmas holiday ended, it seemed, immediately after it started. Now all of the Hogwarts students were anxiously waiting for their spring holiday, and then after that, the end of the school year.

What Amos was waiting for was Valentine's Day.

Sure, at sixteen and a fifth year he had never given much thought to the holiday before. His father had always complained bitterly that it was, "A holiday made just so I'll have less money than I did before."

And while he could certainly understand that, watching some couples throughout the school (his roommate Spencer Stratton was sure that his girlfriend Mindy was going to break up with him when he told her how little money he had for a gift), he also liked to believe his mother's description: "A time to let people know how you really feel about them."

Ordinarily, it would have been just another Wednesday. But in Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall, Amos was hardly able to sit still—simply because this was another class he had with Lucy Russo. How had he never seen her around school before this year? Especially considering that they were in the same house?

"Today, we will be working on the Vanishing Spell."

_Oh, give me a _break.

Amos instead stared at the piece of parchment that he had stuck inside his transfiguration textbook. It was for Lucy, and he had planned on giving it to her that night in the common room, describing how he felt. That was, if he could ever get her away from Olivia Mooney for more than five seconds…

"What's that you've got there, Amos?" Scott asked, jabbing Amos in the ribs.

He winced. "None of your business, Scott." He attempted to slam the book shut, but not before Scott could see what was written at the top: _Dear Lucy…_

"Ooh, is it a love letter?" He grabbed at it before Amos could do anything about it.

"Give it back, Scott!"

"_Evanesco!_"

But to both of their surprise (and to Amos' great horror), Scott laughed, said the incantation for the Vanishing Spell—and the note disappeared.

"Now look what you've done!" Amos snapped, but as the words left his mouth, Professor McGonagall was moving swiftly towards them.

"Mister Connor, I _said _to vanish the quills on your desk, not pieces of parchment!" She flicked her wand, said, "_Ostendo_," and the piece of parchment was back. Amos tried to grab at it, but she walked back toward her desk with it in hand, reading it. She stopped just a few desks away from her own, about halfway through the note, and turned around to face the class.

To Amos' immense dismay, she began to read it.

"_Dear Lucy,_

"_I know that we haven't really spoken to each other a great deal, but I wanted to tell you how I truly feel about you. I've never written a note like this before, because I've never felt like this before._

"_Lucy, I wanted you to know that I think you're very beautiful, and that I would like to request your presence at Hogsmeade this weekend at the Three Broomsticks. If you would grace me with your presence, it would make me feel like the happiest man alive._

"_I also understand if you have other plans or don't want to see me. I don't blame you for it._

_Happy Valentine's Day. Amos Diggory._"

The rest of the class seemed to have a hard time concealing their peals of laughter.

In retrospect, the note sounded a lot better in his head.

"Mr. Diggory, I must ask that you save silly note passing until a later time," McGonagall said. "My class is neither the time nor place for it."

"Sorry, professor," he muttered, staring at his desk and afraid to look her in the face. To his left, Scott was still laughing profusely.

"And Mr. Connor, wipe that grin off your face! This is a classroom, not a circus!"

For the rest of class, Amos kept his gaze low, not even attempting to try the spell that Scott had used so successfully. He could feel the rest of the class watching him, looking at him and giggling behind their hands, whispering to their friends, pointing at Lucy.

As the bell finally rang, he grabbed his things and tried to scurry out—only to be stopped in the hall by Olivia Mooney and Lucy Russo.

"Hi, Amos," Lucy said, looking extremely calm for what had just happened.

"Hi," he muttered, trying to get around her, but she stood rigid in one spot.

"That was—really sweet of you to write that note for me."

"I'm sorry about—what?" He looked up at her, but she still had the same straight face that she always did. She wasn't lying; there was no way that she was. She couldn't have _actually _liked that note, did she?

"I thought it was very sweet of you to be so open and honest about how you're feeling. When should I meet you at the Three Broomsticks?"

_This has got to be a joke. Scott put her up to this, didn't he?_

But Lucy was standing there, with something sort of like a grin on her face, and Olivia seemed to be waiting for an answer, too.

"Uh…how about two?"

"Sounds good. I'll see you there."

She smiled at him, and then she and Olivia went off down the hall together. He watched her as she went, wondering how in the world _he _of all people was going on a date with Lucy Russo, the most beautiful and intelligent girl in their year.

* * *

It seemed that Amos' time at Hogwarts ended all too quickly, and soon, he was eighteen years old and trying to get an internship with the Ministry of Magic. His friend from school, Arthur Weasley, worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office and had guaranteed him a job, but Merlin knew when that 'job' would open up. If Arthur didn't get to it soon, Amos was sure to be completely broke—he had already spent most of his life savings on buying Lucy an engagement ring, and yet he still hadn't given it to her.

He decided that he had put it off long enough. He Who Must Not Be Named certainly seemed relentless, and if they weren't married soon, odds were, they'd never get the chance to. So on the first day of July, he took her out to a quaint little tea shop that she simply adored. The palms of his hands and the backs of his knees were sweating something terrible as she talked to him that day, ordering a cup of cinnamon apple spice tea and drinking it slowly, in small sips.

Finally, she asked him, "Is something the matter, Amos? You're quite—jumpy today."

"I—I just…well…"

_No more putting it off._

He took a deep breath. "Lucy…" And then he was down on one knee. "Will you…?" He couldn't get out the rest of the words, but he was sure that the box in his hand with the sparkling engagement ring spoke for itself.

Tears were quickly welling up in Lucy's gray eyes, and she flung her arms around his neck, saying, "Of course, of course!"

The ring fit her perfectly.

* * *

They were married just a few months later in a small ceremony. Scott served as the best man; Olivia was the maid of honor. Lucy had never looked more beautiful in her entire life.

But just a few years after they exchanged vows, Lucy somehow became much more withdrawn than usual, and Amos started to wonder if maybe she wasn't happy being married to him anymore.

This was more or less confirmed one morning when he was getting ready for work (Arthur finally pulled through, and Amos had found himself in a job at the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures) and Lucy was staring at her cup of coffee as though expecting it to start telling her the meaning of life.

"Is something wrong, Lucy?" Amos asked.

She didn't look up at him, or answer right away, so he took this as a no. But just as he was making his way toward the door…

"What do you think about children?"

He froze. "I beg your pardon?"

She was ghostly white, staring at her even whiter knuckles before she shrugged and said, "Children. What do you think about them?"

Where was this conversation headed? "Er…I don't know." He shrugged, too. "They're small people?"

"I don't mean what you think they _are._ I mean, what do you think about…having them?"

There was a heavy silence for a few moments. The couple both were looking one another in the face, but both seemed very uncomfortable. Lucy, it seemed, was afraid of what her husband's reaction to her question might be; Amos was looking at his wife, wondering if she meant that…

"Do you want to have a baby?" he guessed.

"Well, I mean…I've always wanted to be a mother…"

That was certainly news to him. "I didn't know that."

"It's just that…well, I was an only child. And neither of my parents had any siblings, so I didn't have cousins or any other relatives. And I love children… I just thought, maybe…"

She stopped talking, almost as though she realized this discussion was futile. It was quite clear from the look on Amos' face that he did not want to have a baby, never mind what she wanted. There were a few more seconds of awkward silence, but Lucy no longer met her husband's gaze, again looking down at her white knuckles, staring intently at her wedding ring.

"We won't be young forever," she added quietly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just that having children is harder the older you are, and…"

Amos couldn't help but think about Arthur's own two children, William and Charlie; together they seemed to be a lot of trouble—and a lot of work.

"We aren't having children."

Immediately he regretted this ultimatum—tears welled up within seconds in Lucy's eyes. She looked down at her hands again, which were clasped on the table in front of her, and took slow, deep breaths. She finally shut her eyes, nodded her head, and stood up from the table, going towards the stairs.

"I'll see you after work," he said before he went out the door, wondering why in the world she wanted to have _children._ Weren't they happy enough as it was?

When he got home, he found Lucy sitting in a rocking chair in the extra bedroom, staring at the pale blue wall with a sad look. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and as he did so, she said, "It'd just be…nice to have this room occupied."

He already knew what she was talking about. He sighed, knowing there was no easy way out of this conversation. "Why do you want children so badly?"

Lucy turned around to look at Amos, glaring daggers at him. For a moment he was frightened, wondering why in the world she was so angry all of a sudden. "Why don't _you _want children?"

He had not been expecting that.

"Er…"

"Obviously you don't, Amos. I can tell you don't. You've been avoiding the issue for the longest time. Just give me a single reason."

"It just seems like a lot of work, and…"

"You know what else is a lot of work? Marriage." He felt offended for a moment, but Lucy continued, "It's a lot of sacrifice, and compromise, and willingness to make someone else happy. And this"—she looked at the room, as though she had only ever intended it to be for her future offspring—"would make me _very happy_, Amos."

He was silent for a moment, comprehending it. Finally, after much consideration, he asked again, "Just tell me why you want to be a mother."

She stood, crossing to the window at the other side of the room. Lucy stared out the window for a minute, then turned around. It was still another moment before she spoke. "I want to be able to help my child learn how to read…to teach them manners…to be there for them. I want to make their life as magical as possible—not literally, of course—and I want them to be able to do the same for me. I want a _family_, not just the two of us. You'd be such a great dad…and we'd grow so much as people from it. Children are our legacy—they're an impression of our thoughts and beliefs and values… A child can change the world. And I just have so much love… I just want to be able to make a difference in someone's life."

Amos stood for a moment motionless, taking this all in. Then, he crossed to his wife, running his fingers through her long brown hair, and said, in a quiet voice, "You've already made a difference in mine."

Tears immediately sprang up in Lucy's gray eyes. "Oh, Amos…"

He kissed Lucy quickly, then took her arms in his hands and squeezed them, saying, "Alright…let's do it. I promise you that by this time next year, this room will have someone living in it."

"You promise?" A small, tentative smile was on Lucy's face, tears still in her eyes.

"I promise."

* * *

But two years had passed, and Lucy was still barren and childless. She was sure they were doing everything right, but there was no explanation for why, month after month, home pregnancy tests continually came back negative.

Lucy grew especially frustrated when Molly announced for the third time that she was expecting, though she was also extremely conflicted—of course, despite her frustration, she was extremely happy for her friend, who had sided with Lucy on the "to have children or not to have children" debate that she had with her husband.

"Look, I'm sure it takes time," Amos said after he found Lucy sobbing one night. "Hogsmeade wasn't built in a day."

But she still grew extremely discouraged, wondering what was wrong with her body and why she just couldn't conceive with the same ease that Molly had. Just before Molly was due to give birth (and she looked like just a simple prod with a wand would be enough to make her pop), Lucy sat down at the table with Amos, cleared her throat, and said a sentence that shocked Amos to the core:

"I was thinking about seeing a doctor…"

He dropped his mug of coffee onto the floor, shattering it, before he spoke. "What?"

"A doctor. About my…problem?"

"A _what?_"

"A _doctor. _It's like a Healer, but for Muggles?"

"Why would you want to see a—a dor—a dom—a don…"

"A _doctor._"

"Why would you want to see one of them?"

"They might have some answers for me," she said, shrugging. "I just think they'd be better suited to give me an answer than any Healer would."

Amos sighed, knowing that this was just one of Lucy's wild flights of fancy, and so he finally settled on saying, "Just do what you feel you have to do."

"I think I'll give it to the end of the year," she said, looking at the broken shards of glass on the floor, wrinkling her nose at the smell of coffee and being reminded of just how different she and Amos were; she couldn't stomach all of that caffeine, whereas he had never acquired a taste for all of the boxes of tea she had stored in the cupboard.

Before she went to see a doctor, she decided to ask Molly for advice one last time. What she advised Lucy to do was something that Amos couldn't really argue with: "Just have more sex."

But Lucy's deadline of the end of the year was approaching quickly, and while they followed Molly's advice (which Amos found extremely embarrassing that she would suggest in the first place), there was still no result in the right direction.

Without fail, Lucy took pregnancy test after pregnancy test on the fifth of every month. As the new year rolled in and with the fifth approaching fast, Amos knew what was going to happen when he got home that day: his wife would be disappointed, yet again, and they would have to find some way for her to get into a doctor's office, an appointment that he was not too keen on letting her attend. _It's to make Lucy happy, _he had to keep reminding himself, seeing a look of longing on his wife's face every time that Molly was around with her newest redheaded addition, Percy.

When he arrived home on the fifth of January, he found Lucy seated on the sofa in the sitting room, crying very quietly. He dreaded what he was about to hear, placing a hand on her shoulder and saying, "It's alright, Lucy…"

She looked up at him with a small smile and breathed out two words: "I'm pregnant."

* * *

Lucy, while extremely tall, was also extremely tiny, and so her thin figure vanished very quickly once she had made her announcement. Molly was constantly fussing over her, wanting to know about baby name choices and asking questions such as 'when are you due' and 'do you want a boy or a girl'.

Baby names were definitely constantly on Lucy's mind. Six days out of seven, she cornered Amos to discuss whether he thought Adelaide or Abigail was better for a girl, or if he preferred Jeremy or Jacob for a boy.

He finally relented to this discussion after a long day in July, when it practically looked like Lucy had been inflated—and there was still two months until their child was due.

"Alright, Lucy, what were you thinking?" he asked, hoping this conversation wouldn't last long. He had had a lot to do at work and what he really wanted was to go to sleep…

She placed a hand on her protruding middle. "Molly and my mother think that it's going to be a boy."

He raised a brow. "They can tell just by looking at you?"

"Something about the way I look right now. I'm not entirely sure. But I have been focusing on names for a boy a bit more heavily than a girl…"

"So I've noticed." Nearly every time she found a new one she liked, she ran it by Amos.

"And I've narrowed it down now…"

"From what, a hundred to fifty?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, grabbing a piece of parchment out of a book and unfolding it. It was simply a long list of names. "I do have a few girls' names, too… What do you think of Acerose?"

"I think it sounds dreadful."

"Emily?"

"Very plain."

"Nancy?"

"Even plainer."

"Ophelia?"

"Is that an illness?"

"You have to agree to _something._" She rubbed her temples. It seemed that she had been getting headaches often as of late.

"You just said yourself that everyone thinks it'll be a boy!"

"But we have to have _something _just in case!"

Did Lucy just enjoy being difficult, or was it an acquired skill as of late? Amos sighed, yet again, saying, "Just start reading the others to me. The boys' names."

"Sebastian?"

"Excuse me?"

"Matthias?"

"How is that even spelled?"

"Raphael?"

"Can you _get_ more pretentious?"

"I'm Italian, Amos!"

"But I'm not!" He didn't see what was so wrong with a simple name. He didn't want something extremely common, like the two girls' names Lucy had suggested—Emily and Nancy. But then, he didn't want something so out of the blue as _Sebastian._

He vetoed about five more names, including Augustus ("I'm not naming my child after a _month_!"), Rufus ("That sounds like a name for a cat, not a person…"), Sterling ("Like the silver?"), and Lucio ("I already told you that I'm not Italian!"). Finally, it was his turn to rub his temples.

"Do you have anything else? Anything at all, Lucy?"

And now, it was her turn to sigh. "Well, there _is _one…but I don't know if you'll like it. It's…it's my favorite."

"So why didn't you suggest it earlier?"

"Because if you said 'no' to it right away, then…"

"Just tell me what it is already."

Lucy hesitated, then pushed the parchment toward her husband. She had crossed off every single name on the list, but had circled one—the one that she had been reserving. He pushed his spectacles higher up on his nose, narrowing his eyes slightly to be able to read Lucy's handwriting.

_Cedric._

The name…it wasn't so pretentious, like some of the others, but it also sounded somehow sophisticated. And unlike Matthias, he actually knew how to spell this one…

"Cedric," he said aloud, in order to test how it sounded. Then, just to test it further, "Cedric Diggory."

Lucy seemed to be watching him with bated breath, wanting to know how he felt about it. When he didn't say anything, she finally broke the silence, saying, "When he's young we'd probably try to shorten it…"

Amos suddenly looked up at her. "We're not going to call him 'Rick' or 'Ricky', or any variant of it…"

"Well, of course not," she said as vehemently as she would if she had been anticipating this response, then softened her voice again. "I was thinking maybe Ced, for short. That is, if you like it…"

He placed a hand over hers, saying, "It's perfect."

* * *

On September the seventh, Lucy arrived as a patient at the Emergency Medical Center for Wizards and Warlocks, and it was there that their son was born at ten thirty in the morning the following day.

When Amos finally got a good look at his son, he was asleep in his mother's arms, wrapped up in a blue blanket and with the smallest striped hat he had ever seen in his life on his head. He had one hand peeking out of his blankets, and as Amos looked down at him, he turned his head to the side, inserting his thumb into his mouth as he slumbered.

They would have to break him of that habit eventually; he had seen him doing it in some pictures of him that Lucy had called 'ultrasounds'. Amos had heard that this habit would make him develop bad teeth later in life, though he didn't know how true that statement was.

Lucy still had tears in her gray eyes as she looked down at their son, and it had been nearly an hour and a half since he was born. He knew, deep in his heart, that this was the happiest he had ever seen his wife, and that the infant in her arms was the cause. He kissed the top of her head before his eyes fell on a piece of parchment on the table by her bedside. It was their son's birth certificate, which Lucy had already filled out.

A new sense of pride filled him when he saw what she had put on the line for their son's name:

_Cedric Amos Diggory._

* * *

Cedric had just learned how to walk when there was a knock at the door. Lucy was out of the house, getting groceries, and Amos desperately wanted to sit and rest after the day he had—not only was Cedric walking, but he was also teething, and therefore made his presence known at all times—and very loudly. He was looking more and more like Lucy day by day, but he definitely did not have her calm demeanor—Amos was hoping that, in some paradoxical turn of events, once he learned how to talk he would quiet down some.

Sighing, he walked to the door, hearing little footsteps running after him. He turned, surprised to see his son running up to him. Amos picked him up off the floor, shaking his head. "You're supposed to be sleeping," he said, wondering how Cedric managed to get out of his crib when he was only just over a year old. Then he shook his head; his son would never understand what he said.

Carrying Cedric on his hip, he finally approached the door and opened it, drawing back in surprise to see a young couple standing before him.

"Hello," the man said, his green eyes large and friendly looking. "My name's Braiden Lewis. This is my wife, Katie. We just moved next door."

Amos had wondered for a long time why a house had been built not too far from his own, but had never actually expected anyone to move into it. He stood silently staring at Braiden.

His petite wife stood smiling next to him, holding onto one of his arms with both of her hands.

Braiden continued, "Figured it was time to get our own home. Just wanted to stop by and meet our new neighbors. Say, I think I know you from somewhere. You go to Hogwarts?"

Amos finally found his voice to nod and say, "I was in Hufflepuff."

"Me too. I don't think that's it, though… Where do you work?"

"Ministry of Magic."

Braiden snapped his fingers. "That's it. I've been working there for a little bit, too, in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. And you…?"

"Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."

He wondered whether he had stopped by to see Arthur and Molly, too, and their home that was exploding with children—with the birth of their twins, Fred and George, they now had five sons. Amos doubted whether Lucy would ever be pregnant again.

"Oh, I just realized. I never got your name."

"Amos Diggory."

Cedric was getting fussy, trying to wiggle his way out of his father's arms.

"And who is this?" Braiden asked, noticing the fussiness.

Amos holstered his son up higher on his hip, saying, "This is my son, Cedric."

Katie, who had been completely silent, suddenly stepped forward. "Do you mind…?" she asked, arms extended.

Amos passed Cedric off to her, turning back to her husband. "Do you have any kids?"

Braiden shook his head. "No. Don't know if we ever will." Then, glancing to make sure his wife wasn't listening, he asked in a hushed tone, "Are you a single dad?"

Amos' cheeks turned red at the question. "No…my wife, Lucy—she just stepped out. She'll be back in a minute." He really didn't know when Lucy would return, but it'd be better to fib just a little bit, considering the question.

"Oh. Well, we'd love to stop by some time and meet her. Wouldn't we, Katie?" He turned back to his wife, who looked up from Cedric (she had gotten him to calm down, and he was giggling in her arms) and nodded, then went back to the new neighbor's son. "Katie, give the man his kid back."

She sighed, handing him off to his father again, who set him down on his feet and said, "Go back to your room."

Cedric tottered off down the hall in the opposite direction, then Braiden said, "Well, it was very nice to meet you. It seems there's two other families we have to meet."

Amos nodded, assuming that Braiden was referring to the Fawcetts and the Weasleys, then said, "Welcome to the neighborhood," before the couple disappeared.

* * *

He never would have thought how close he and Lucy would grow to the neighbors, but they grew very cordial with each other over the next few years. Every Saturday, they would drop in to have tea and chit chat with one another, and as more time went on, the couple grew very attached to Cedric.

One day, out of the blue, Katie announced, "Well, we've got something to tell you." She grabbed onto Braiden's hand and squeezed it; he smiled broadly at his wife and she covered her mouth with her hand, giggling. Amos had never seen her so giddy before.

"What?" Lucy asked, sounding nearly as excited as Katie.

She started to grin just as wide as her husband and said, "Well…we're going to have a baby."

Lucy practically squealed and immediately began discussing baby things with Katie, then Braiden turned to Amos and said quietly, "You know, it's because of your son that we decided to have a kid."

He raised a brow. "Oh?"

"We've just seen what a positive impact Cedric has on you and Lucy, and we thought…maybe we could complete our family this way."

* * *

A letter arrived in the early afternoon on August the twenty-third, the day after Percy's fifth birthday. Though Molly and Arthur had thrown a small party (which was no easy task, considering they now had seven children—six sons and one newborn daughter), Katie had not been in attendance, partially because she was well past her due date and also because she had been complaining of a pain in her side. Lucy speculated that she might be going into labor.

The letter confirmed just that. She turned to Amos and said, "Katie had her baby this morning."

Amos turned to her, waiting for her to say more.

"They had a little girl. She's at the Emergency Medical Center for Wizards and Warlocks. That's all it says."

Without really agreeing to it aloud, they dropped off Cedric with Lucy's mother, his grandmother Aria, and went to the hospital to visit the new mother and daughter. They found Katie propped up by lots of pillows, holding a bundle of pink blankets in her arms carefully. The baby was fairly pretty, and the scene reminded Amos of the day that Cedric was born. The baby was sleeping and sucking, but she wasn't sucking on her own thumb; she had a blue dummy in her mouth. Katie's eyes were wide open, still red and bloodshot.

Amos looked at the little girl's birth certificate, frowning at what was printed there. "Where did you come up with that?" he asked, looking especially at the middle name and wondering how to pronounce it. When he looked up, Braiden was watching him a bit fearfully.

_Maddie Stefani Lewis._

Katie sighed, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. "Well, when we were discussing names, we both had choices that started with 'mad'. Braiden liked Madden…"

The fear in Braiden's eyes was gone. "I thought it sounded strong…"

"It sounded like a boys' name, Bray! Anyway, he liked Madden, but I liked Madelyn, and…"

"Which sounds a lot like Madden…"

"_Actually_, what you _said_ was that it sounded a lot like 'Maddie Lynn', and I said we'd probably just call her 'Maddie' anyway…and it stuck."

Lucy was already waiting her turn to hold the new baby, who looked just like her father, but Amos was still wondering about the name. "And the middle name…?" he asked.

Katie groaned. "Braiden didn't know how to spell 'Stephanie'."

"I did my best, Katie! And I think the 'f' is more logical than that 'p-h' nonsense." He turned to Amos, shaking his head at his wife, but then his expression turned very serious. "Amos, can I speak to you privately?"

Amos looked up at Lucy and Katie, who was passing off the baby to his wife, then back to Braiden and nodded. They stepped out into the hall, where Braiden shut the door quietly, then turned to Amos looking frightened.

"Is there something…" Amos started, but Braiden interrupted him.

"You were looking at Maddie's birth certificate."

"Is there anything wrong with that?"

"I'm sure you saw what we had listed as her blood status."

Amos frowned; he had been so focused on the spelling of the name 'Stefani' that he overlooked that part of the paper.

"No…"

"It says that she's halfblood, Amos."

Amos stared at Braiden, extremely confused. For the entire time that he had known Braiden and Katie, he had been told they were both pureblooded. And the last name Lewis… Braiden couldn't be anything _but_ pure. Why would Maddie be any different?

"Half?"

"Katie's Muggleborn."

There was another heavy silence following this announcement. "Really?" Amos asked at long last.

Braiden nodded. "I love my wife, Amos, but one of the main reasons we married was to protect her. With all this You-Know-Who nonsense… I didn't want anything to happen to her. And my name protects her pretty damn well. But I can't lie on Maddie's birth certificate. I can't claim that she's pureblooded when she's not…" He took another deep breath, then said, "Katie's really emotional right now, too. And I don't just mean because she just became a mother. You saw her when you came in, she looked like she was crying."

"Is everything…"

"Her mother and father aren't exactly very supportive of magic. She hasn't heard from her father in years—when he found out she was a witch, he just _left._ Joan—Katie's mum—she was hoping that if she married a Muggle, then maybe her kids would turn out normal. But that obviously didn't happen. Joan was here earlier. We thought she wanted to meet her granddaughter—no, she wanted to berate Katie for her decision to have a kid with me."

Amos really struggled for something to say. There didn't seem to be a single word in the world to placate Braiden at this time. He was hoping that, behind the door, Katie and Lucy weren't having this same conversation. He didn't know if Lucy would be able to help any better than he would be.

There was a long silence, which Braiden finally broke by changing the subject. "Merlin, you should have seen me cry when I held her for the first time," he said quietly. "She's so…_perfect._ I never thought I'd be able to love someone so much from the moment I met them."

Amos fought a grin; he had felt the same when he saw Cedric for the first time almost four years earlier.

"But I'm also just so scared for her," he continued. "I mean, someone's going to break her heart someday. Someone is going to hurt her. I just hope she's smart…"

"Braiden, she's only a few hours old. There's plenty of time to worry about this in a few more years."

"It's easy for you to say. You have a son. With a son, you've only got one prick to worry about. With a daughter—you have to worry about them all."

"But don't you think I need to make sure that Cedric doesn't turn into the kind of prick that you need to protect Maddie from?" Amos teased. "She's going to be fine, Braiden. Even with all of this You-Know-Who business."

* * *

It was as though that one sentence was a bad omen. When Amos and Lucy returned home from the hospital and had collected Cedric from Aria, there was another note sitting on the windowsill. While Braiden and Katie had been celebrating a new life, another had been cruelly taken away.

Amos' friend Scott had been killed by a Death Eater.

After the funeral, Amos returned home to find Lucy in Cedric's room, their son sitting perched on her lap as she rocked him gently in the rocking chair, reading him _Tales of Beedle the Bard_.

"But though Death searched for the third brother for many years," Katie read in a quiet voice, "he was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life."

With Cedric half asleep, Lucy hoisted him into her arms, put him in bed, and tucked him in. She left the room after she kissed his forehead, gently shutting the door to his room. Lucy's face suddenly became somber. "How was the service?"

Amos took Lucy in his arms, squeezing her very tightly as he thought about Scott's wife, Althea, who had been inconsolable. "It made me realize that you and Cedric are the best things that ever happened to me." He gave Lucy a quick kiss, then said, "I promise, Lucy, I will love you forever and always."

* * *

_Forever and always._

Before Amos had realized what happened, he was back in his bed in the present. Cedric was across the hall, sleeping, but he was nearly eighteen years old. Lucy was asleep beside him, and he imagined that Maddie Lewis was sleeping next door, too—but she wasn't a newborn in her mother's arms anymore, and she definitely didn't need a dummy to pacify her.

Amos couldn't help but realize how wrong he had been as he reflected on what he had been thinking about for the past few hours. Lucy was extremely kind and caring, and intelligent, and made him so incredibly happy, even when he was upset with her…

Maddie was extremely kind and caring, and intelligent…

And then there was that argument the other day in the kitchen.

_"Are you happy, Cedric?"_

_"Yes…with _her._"_

And then there was that conversation with Braiden Lewis on the twenty-third of August nearly fourteen years prior…

_"Someone's going to break her heart someday. Someone is going to hurt her… You have a son. With a son, you've only got one prick to worry about. With a daughter—you have to worry about them all."_

_"But don't you think I need to make sure that Cedric doesn't turn into the kind of prick that you need to protect Maddie from?"_

And lastly—it was silly—but there was that comment that Braiden had made when Katie announced that she was pregnant…

_"You know, it's because of your son that we decided to have a kid. We've just seen what a positive impact Cedric has on you and Lucy, and we thought…maybe we could complete our family this way."_

She was made for their son.

Okay, maybe the age difference was a bit obscene, but how could he not realize sooner that Cedric was so happy with this girl? How could he not realize how much Cedric's happiness made him happy?

_Forever and always._

"Lucy," Amos said, shaking his wife a bit. "Lucy, wake up."

She sat upright in bed, though she still looked and sounded groggy. "What's the matter?"

"I have to talk to Braiden and Katie."

"What?" she said exasperatedly. She looked across the room at the fluorescent clock, furrowing her brow. "Amos, it's two o'clock in the morning!"

"It's important!"

"What is so important that you have to speak to them at _two in the morning?_"

"It's about their daughter…"

She groaned, rolling over. "Amos, they are probably trying to sleep. You can talk to them about what a disappointment our children have been when the sun comes up."

Within minutes, she was asleep again.

He shook his head sadly at what she had said. A day or two ago, he might have agreed that their children were disappointments. But the problem in that was that there was no possible way for him to be disappointed in Cedric. He was the most amazing son Amos could have ever asked for—even if he never exactly asked for one in the first place, the one he was given was the best child any father could have ever wanted.

* * *

**WOW THIS CHAPTER WAS LONG. Writing this took forever. The main reason I included this was actually that I had a lot of stuff in my head about Amos and Lucy, but it didn't really fit anywhere else in the story, and it seemed like a logical way to get Amos to change his mind. I also took a few liberties in the magical world with the whole pregnancy test thing and the hospital (the Emergency Medical Center for Wizards and Warlocks), because to me there was no logical place at St. Mungo's for a witch to give birth in. Also, it will play a role later on in this story... Maybe. ;)**

**Sorry this took so long, I've been way busier than I've been anticipating. In a few more weeks I have my AP tests coming up, so I need to focus on those a little bit, although I have spring break this next coming week so hopefully I can write a bit more this week. I don't have a lot else to say here, so just make sure you review! And a Happy Easter to you all!**

**- Hatter of Madness**


	5. Accidentally in Love

"What is this about, exactly?" Lucy asked the following morning when Amos sent a letter to Braiden Lewis, telling him to come over at one o'clock, and to bring his wife. He said it was of the utmost importance.

"Their daughter and our son."

"Oh, here we go again..."

"Listen, Lucy. This is something you're going to want to hear..."

"I just don't understand why you can't leave well enough alone. Maddie's a good kid. Cedric is, too."

If only she knew.

At precisely one in the afternoon, there was a knock on the door. Amos opened the door, a bit surprised to see Braiden and Katie standing behind the door with scowls on their faces. Neither one of them seemed particularly excited for this meeting, but Amos simply stood aside and said to them, "Come in, come in."

"This had better be good, Amos," Braiden said as he stepped into the house, Katie following closely behind with her arms crossed over her chest. When they sat down on the sofa, they both looked extremely uncomfortable, and oddly out of place. It was as though they could not remember all the nights they used to spend together in this house; all the conversations they had shared there...simply because their children had done the inevitable.

Amos opened his mouth to say that it was, but instead he heard himself saying, "Where is your daughter?"

"At home, I'm hoping," Braiden said, sitting up straighter. "Maddie's grounded for coming here the other day."

Lucy, who was seated on the arm of the chair that Amos sat in, cleared her throat loudly and indignantly. It seemed that she was angry at her husband, not at their guests, for Maddie's punishment. Amos ignored her; she didn't have the slightest idea as to what he was going to say.

"Has she been behaving herself?"

Braiden and Katie exchanged puzzled looks, then turned back to their hosts. Lucy, too, seemed to be a bit confused as to this question, but Amos waited patiently for an answer. "She's fine. Doesn't get bad marks—great marks, actually. Mostly outstandings. Obviously got that from her mother."

Katie cleared her throat the same as Lucy just did, then said, "Stay on topic, Bray."

"Oh—right. Well, she's a good kid. Doesn't talk back—polite as all hell. Has good friends, not hanging around with the wrong crowd. Makes good decisions—except for her decisions involving your son."

"And why exactly do you think they're not good decisions?"

There was a bit of a subdued silence as the Lewises took in this question. How were they to answer it? "Well...she's thirteen years old, acting like she knows everything. Should have heard her last night—'Daddy, I love him; Daddy, he loves me; Daddy, please listen'...she hasn't called me 'Daddy' since she was seven. It's always 'Dad this', 'Dad that'—'Father' if she's not in a good mood."

Amos hid a laugh. To be quite honest, he couldn't imagine anyone calling Braiden 'Father', not even his own child. And just the thought of Maddie calling him that title was enough to make anyone start laughing, as though their relationship was nearly so formal.

"It's good she's still speaking to you," Lucy said, looking at her husband disdainfully. "Neither one of us can get Cedric to say a word. He hasn't said anything in _days_."

"Oh, but she lets us know she's not very happy being grounded," Braiden continued. "She's been bending over backwards to get us to try to lift the punishment. I've never seen someone who can't cook to save their life try to make a meal as much as she does."

"So why exactly is she being punished?" Amos asked, though he already knew the answer to that question. It was really said in order to push thoughts of Maddie cooking from his mind. Just the thought itself was disastrous.

"You know fully well why she's being punished," Braiden said, sitting up straighter on the sofa and leaning forward, almost as though trying to get in Amos' face where he sat across from him. "Because she came over here and was with your son when we _forbade _her from seeing him _and _leaving the house."

"You know your daughter has a good head on her shoulders?" Amos said.

Both of his guests stared at him as though he had just claimed to be the Minister of Magic. "What?" Braiden finally asked.

"You two never did talk to her as though she was her age... Always treated her like an adult."

"What the hell are you talking about, Amos?"

"She's very mature. How old is she—fourteen?"

"Not quite. Next month she will be."

"Could have had me fooled... Braiden, what are we doing?"

"What are we doing about what?" Katie asked. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap, looking at Amos as though she had transferred all her contempt for his son to him. Merlin knew she had contempt for Cedric; she was definitely not happy about his relationship with her daughter. The look on her face whenever his name was mentioned was enough to let anyone know just how she felt about the neighbors' son.

"We're keeping our kids separated from one another, punishing them when they want to see each other, and for what?" He stood, fully aware of the way that Lucy was watching him in disbelief. "Because they want to experiment a little bit with dating? Because they're growing up?"

Neither Braiden nor Katie seemed to have a response ready for this. "It's—it's different," Braiden finally said. "Our daughter is only thirteen years old..."

"And how old were you, Katie, when you first started dating?"

Katie kept uncomfortably silent at that.

"Amos, where is this coming from?" Lucy finally asked, wondering how her husband could have made such a drastic turnaround in just the last twenty-four hours. Amos, who had been pacing the room, stopped to turn and look at her.

"I did a bit of soul searching last night. I was just thinking about something Cedric said to me the other day: 'Don't you remember what it's like to love someone for the first time in your life?' I was thinking about Lucy"—Lucy's eyes about doubled in size out of surprise, and she suddenly started to look unblinkingly at her husband—"and about our kids. They really are good kids. You've said that your daughter is extremely polite—which she is—that she's intelligent, and makes good choices... My son does, too. I think that's why they've always gotten along so well with each other; they complement each other nicely."

"What are you trying to say, Amos?" Katie asked.

"Doesn't it make sense that the person you love is your best friend?" He was now pacing the room, his words sounding more like he was vocalizing his thoughts than they sounded like conversation. "They've always been best friends...this just seems like it was inevitable."

"What seems inevitable, dare I ask?" Braiden asked.

"Our children dating. Don't you remember, Braiden, when your daughter was five years old, and the two of us would make jokes that she'd end up married to Cedric some day?"

"Well, yes," Braiden said, sounding as though he was speaking to a six-year-old, "but that's all they were, Amos, were jokes."

Amos suddenly cringed at the word choice as he remembered his conversation with his son when he finally admitted to being in a relationship with the girl next door: _"Is this some kind of joke?"_

"They don't seem like they're joking," Amos said quite plainly, standing still. "Braiden, Katie, what are we doing? Punishing them for the inevitable?"

"What are you going on about, the inevitable?" Braiden asked.

"You know as well as I do that our kids were inseparable when they were younger. And I dare you to look at your wife and tell me that she isn't your best friend."

Braiden was looking at Katie in such away that the answer was obvious. He took one of her hands in his and squeezed it gently before he turned back to Amos. "Well, that may be, Amos, but you don't mean to tell me that you've suddenly found this entire thing—how do I put this—_sweet?_ You don't mean to tell me that in just a matter of days you've completely changed your mind about this entire thing?"

"Not entirely," he admitted. "I will say that I wish they would have waited until they were a little older. But what are the odds that this will be a long term thing? And don't you think you should have your daughter's best interest at heart?"

"That's why we think we should keep them separated," Katie said, but Amos raised a hand to let her know that he wasn't listening.

"I mean to say, don't you think that my son is making your daughter very happy? And shouldn't you want your children's happiness?"

That was all that it took to convince them. A poignant silence fell over the room as the full weight of what Amos was saying hit Katie and Braiden. Nobody said anything for a long moment; Lucy, too, was incapable of speech, wondering what had caused such a sudden turnaround in her husband. Finally, Amos said, "As long as they're loving and caring towards each other, shouldn't we place our children's happiness first?"

Braiden finally found his voice to say, "Well, your son _is _a good kid. But if he dares hurt my baby girl then I swear to Merlin I will..."

"I can assure you that I've raised him to be a good man, Braiden."

"What do you have to say about all of this, Lucy?" Katie asked, noticing how long her friend had been silent.

"I've supported them from the beginning," she said. "I've always thought that Maddie was very sweet on Cedric. I've suspected for a while that it was only a matter of time before he realized... And Cedric obviously feels very passionately about her, if it's caused this much uproar in our house."

"I suppose you're right," Braiden said, then he sighed and stood up off the sofa. "Well—I suspect we'd better go and tell Maddie that she isn't being punished anymore." He crossed the room, shook Amos' hand as though they had just made a business transaction, and said to his wife, "Come on, Katie."

With that, they joined hands and Disapparated.

There was quiet in the room for a few moments, until Lucy stood up off the chair that she had been perched on and crossed to Amos, placing a hand on his shoulder from behind. He turned around to face her, seeing a relieved smile on her face. "I don't know what made you change your mind," she said quietly, "but Merlin, I'm glad you did."

"I was just thinking last night," he said, but Lucy interrupted.

"At two in the morning?"

"I couldn't sleep—anyway, I was just thinking. They remind me of you and me, in our younger days."

Before Lucy had a chance to say anything else, there was a _pop,_ and they looked up to see that Cedric had just Apparated into the room—looking a bit surprised to find his parents there.

Amos turned to him, folding his arms over his chest. "Cedric, where have you been?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Places."

"You know that you're grounded, young man..." But Lucy cleared her throat, stopping Amos in his tracks. "Oh—right. About that. We need to have a word with you."

"I wasn't seeing Maddie, if that's what you're thinking."

"It's not that, Cedric." Amos sighed, feeling a bit embarrassed that he had to admit his mistake. "Cedric, we were talking to Braiden and Katie today, and we were thinking... How long have you known Maddie?"

Cedric was caught off guard by the question, but he answered, "Ten years in September."

"Ten years," Amos repeated quietly, nodding to himself. "That's right. And how long have these—er—romantic feelings been present?"

Cedric was even more confused now. Where in the world were these questions coming from? "I-I don't know. A couple years?"

"So don't you think it was inevitable that this sort of thing happened?"

Cedric furrowed his brow, knowing that his father had to have lost his mind. "Are you feeling alright, Dad?"

"I'm feeling fine, Ced. How are _you _feeling?"

"Confused."

"Get to the point, Amos," Lucy muttered, rubbing her temples something furious and staring at the ground.

"Cedric, your mother and I were talking with the neighbors today. You've certainly done some maturing this year, and you've always been so responsible with their daughter. And, well..." He glanced at Lucy, then placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "We just want to see you happy."

There was another momentary silence as Cedric tried to take in what his father had just said. It sounded an awful lot like he was giving him permission to see Maddie? After all that? "Are you saying...?" he started, but Amos cut him off, taking his hand off of his son's shoulder and nodding his head.

"Just...take care of her."

Cedric's breath caught in his throat. This had to be a dream, a beautiful dream come true. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely serious. You are no longer being punished. Just don't do anything to make me change my mind."

"I promise you I won't. Do her parents know about this?"

"We reached this decision together. I'm sure they've just told her..."

With that, Cedric was already walking out the door. It shut before Amos could finish his sentence. Shaking his head, he turned back to his wife, saying, "Does he ever listen to anything we have to say?"

"I'm sure he will now," Lucy said, smiling at her husband. "I'm very proud of you for doing that for him, Amos. Especially since you don't have me fooled."

He raised a brow at her. "What do you mean, I don't have you fooled?"

"I can tell you accept this just as much as you accept the idea of animals talking."

He sighed. Lucy could read him like a book, and it seemed like it had always been that way. "It's to make him happy."

* * *

When Cedric found Maddie, it seemed that she had been looking for him, too. He grabbed her in his arms without a word, kissing her in much the same way that he had in the Great Hall the morning after the Final Task of the Triwizard Tournament. He dipped her back slightly in his arms, feeling lost with her in his embrace. When he finally stood her up and opened his eyes, he said, "Did your parents tell you?"

"Yes," she said, still holding onto him as though afraid he was going to drop her on the ground. "They said that they..."

"Just wanted to see you happy?" he guessed. Maddie nodded before he said, "Mine said that, too." Seeing her face fall, he held her chin in one hand, saying, "It's a start," and then he pressed his lips against hers once again.

Merlin, he had missed this feeling. He had missed _her. _Holding her in his arms was a lot nicer than holding her picture in his hand.

Everything was falling into place.

* * *

Cedric walked into the kitchen cautiously, afraid of what his mother was going to say to his request. She was washing dishes from lunch, hunched over the sink with her back to her son. He cleared his throat to announce his presence in the room before saying, "Uh, Mum?"

"Yes, dear," she said without turning around.

Nervously, he asked, "I was just wondering, if it wasn't too much trouble...if Maddie could come over?"

She turned around to face her son at long last. "You don't have to ask when it comes to her, Cedric," she said. "Not anymore."

"Oh—okay."

"Just make sure to leave your door open if you take her into your room."

"We weren't going to go in my room," he said, a bit surprised at this new freedom. It had been two days since his father had changed his mind about his girlfriend. He still didn't feel like he was in reality; it felt like if he ever brought his girlfriend over, his father would have something to say about it.

Still, he sent a letter to her telling her to come over, and within minutes Maddie was on his doorstep. He brought her into the house and they sat on the living room sofa, talking and laughing for hours on end. For the entire duration of the conversation, he held her hand in his, and it wasn't until she said she had to go home for supper that he disentangled his fingers from hers.

He walked her to his door, kissed her goodbye, and opened the door for her to leave. She had just been there only seconds before, but as he watched her walk back to her house, he felt unbelievably lonely.

Every day for the rest of the month, she was over at his house or he went over to hers. It felt so much nicer to be able to publicly be in love with each other than when everything was kept hidden. And whenever Maddie was at Cedric's house, Lucy liked to stop in every once in a while to check up on them. While at first Cedric disliked these little interruptions, he was extremely grateful that his mother seemed to be getting along so well with his girlfriend. He couldn't help but notice that, even though his father was usually working whenever Maddie was over, Amos tried his hardest to stay out of the couple's way.

The only time the three ever saw each other was on the first of August, when Cedric was walking Maddie to the door when she had to leave. He was just about to kiss her goodbye when the door opened and Amos walked into the house.

"Oh—pardon me," he said, a bit embarrassed to be in their way, then dashed past them.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Maddie spoke. "Your dad doesn't like me."

"He likes you plenty," Cedric started.

"No, he doesn't. He always does things like this."

"It makes him uncomfortable."

"Doesn't that make _you _uncomfortable?"

Well, it did, but he couldn't tell her that. Instead, he held her head in his hands by the nape of her neck and whispered, "I love you, and that's all that matters." Then he kissed her forehead, but when he pulled away, he wanted more than anything to kiss _her. _Without another moment's hesitation, he captured her top lip between his, smiling sheepishly at her when they broke apart. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," she said, nodding, and then he opened the door and she walked away.

* * *

When Hogwarts letters finally arrived in the mail, Cedric knew it was time to ask Maddie the question that she never would give a straight answer to.

"What do you want for your birthday?" he asked her about a week in advance.

"Nothing."

"Maddie..."

"I don't want anything." She shook her head to convince him further of the point she was trying to make. "My birthday is just another Wednesday."

"It's not _just _another Wednesday..."

"I don't want anything," she repeated, but seeing the look on Cedric's face she knew that that was not going to be an option. "I can tell I'm going to get something, though."

"Just please give me a hint as to what you'd like?" he asked. He looked at her neck and cursed himself for getting her the locket the year before; how was he ever supposed to top _that?_

She shrugged her shoulders. "An hour of your time?"

"_Please_, Mad?"

"I just want to spend time with you. That's all."

While he couldn't argue with spending more time with her (though his father could; just the night before his dad had protested that his son had spent pretty much every minute that summer with his girlfriend and no time at all doing anything else. He had even asked, "How can you two find things to talk about when you see each other every day?"), he was not going to take that as an answer. "But what about an actual gift?"

"I don't want anything tangible."

"Not even—"

"Nothing, Cedric."

He was silenced then, knowing that he had to get her _something._ "Alright," he said at long last, his mind still reeling as he tried to find something to present her with. "Well, I can promise you we'll spend time together. How about we see each other after you and your parents have dinner?"

She agreed to it, so on the twenty-third of August at precisely eight o'clock, Cedric showed up on her doorstep with a bouquet of roses in hand. When she opened the door, almost immediately his breath was taken away. Maddie was wearing a navy blue dress which was fitted from the waist up, but flowed down to her knees, and with sleeves that fell just above her elbows. Around the scoop neck was the locket he had given her precisely a year ago.

Before she had a chance to say anything, Cedric said aloud what he was thinking: "You look beautiful, baby."

"Thank you," she said, and then, embarrassed, his eyes fell on her feet. He hid a laugh as he realized that she—ever the tomboy—was wearing a pair of black trainers to complete the outfit.

"These are for you," he said, handing her the bouquet of roses.

She blushed nearly as red as the flowers. "Cedric, I said I didn't want..."

"And I told you that that wasn't an option. I'm just sorry it's not as nice as what I got you last year..."

"They're lovely. Thank you. Let me just go put these down and I'll be right back."

He waited patiently as she retreated in the house. When she finally returned to the door again, he took her in his arms and kissed her, saying as he pulled away, "One."

"One what?"

"You'll see. Do you care to join me on the hill by our tree?"

_Our tree._ They had called it that the summer before, the first summer that they had been together. The name had arrived because of how much time they had spent together there as children. This was the tree that Cedric had taught Maddie to climb trees in (and where she had fallen to the ground, ruining her twenty-twenty vision); this was where he had shown her his first Hogwarts letter; this was where she had swallowed her front teeth. Reflecting, Cedric realized that neither one of them had had a typical childhood...but he wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

At the suggestion, she slipped her fingers through his and said, "What exactly do you have in mind?"

He squeezed her hand and said, "You like astronomy, don't you?"

She nodded, saying, "Of course."

"Then I had planned on us just enjoying each other's company on the hill...stargazing. How does that sound?"

"It sounds lovely."

A sheepish smile spread across his face as he leaned in close to her, pressed his lips against hers, and said, "Two."

"Two?"

"Patience, sweetheart. It's a virtue." Maddie rolled her eyes and laughed as Cedric led her to the hill in question. She sat down on the ground before he seated himself, then she leaned back on her elbows looking at the nightsky. Her face lit up in wonder, the same way that a small child's would upon receiving a gift. With that look of wonder, Cedric knew that this was better than any gift he could give her.

And with that, he took her face in his hands and kissed her again, saying, "Three."

"Are we still counting?"

"Yes," he said into her lips, kissing her again before arriving at, "Four."

"Can I ask why?"

"You can." Another kiss. "Five. But I won't answer."

Before long, both of them were laying down on the grass, and Cedric allowed Maddie to talk about the night sky in bewilderment for a very long time. He shut his eyes for a few moments, just listening to the intoxicating sound of her voice. She had just pointed out the constellation Sagittarius when he turned to look at her. She noticed his eyes on her and turned to look back at him, then he leaned in close to her, kissed her, and whispered, "Six. You know, I feel like I'm falling deeper in love with you."

"Really?" Her voice sounded so incredulous, her face hopeful. "Why?"

"Because this is something that's obviously important to you. And you just seem so natural right now. None of this makes any sense to me but to you...to you it's as simple as _breathing._"

"And that makes you fall in love with me?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." He moved so close to her that their noses were touching, his eyes resting on her lips ("Seven," he whispered into her lips). After he had counted, they stayed silent for about a minute, just staring deeply into one another's eyes, then Cedric finally said, "I love you, Maddie."

"I love you, too, Cedric," she said back quietly.

"You've made me the happiest man in the world these past few months. I'm so glad that it's been you."

"That it's been me?"

"That I fell in love with."

With the night sky forgotten, Cedric kissed Maddie once again, whispering, "Eight." When he had finished speaking, however, he realized that Maddie had tears in her eyes. "What's wrong, Mad?"

"Nothing." But tears continued to slip down her face, so Cedric took hold of her hand again (he had let it go after they had down, because Maddie had been so animated) and squeezed it gently, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. "I just...I don't understand sometimes..."

"You don't understand what, baby?"

"How this happened between us."

"What do you mean..."

"How we started off as best friends and ended up here."

Oh, that. He brushed a few strands of hair off her face (the wind had blown a few golden tresses onto her face, which had stuck there because of the tears), letting his fingers trail down her jawbone as he tucked her hair behind her ear. "I wonder about that all the time, sweetheart," he said. "I mean, I look at you, and I just feel so happy, but it's like...a part of me is still thinking about the four-year-old girl I met on my sofa. A part of me is still thinking about how shy you used to be." A grin crossed his face and he squeezed her hand tighter. "A part of me is still clinging to when you couldn't pronounce my name and you called me 'Ceddie'."

She laughed, but tears were still running down her face. "Merlin, don't remind me," she said, sounding so embarrassed that Cedric's grin turned into a laugh, too.

"On the bright side, you don't lisp anymore."

"And I might have teeth lodged in my stomach."

"Well, while you have teeth in your stomach, I have butterflies in mine," he said, dropping his voice back down to a whisper. For a moment, there was no sound but the sound of crickets chirping somewhere nearby. Her face was only illuminated by the light of the moon and stars above, and for some reason, it felt totally _intimate. _He never wanted to let go of her hand. "I'll give you my theory. Knowing you for so long—it made me realize that you're everything I've ever looked for in a partner. Merlin, I'm so glad I told you how I felt about you." Tears were still running down her face, so he leaned in close to her again and pressed his lips up against hers. When they separated, he whispered, "I love you so much, baby."

Rather than say it back, Maddie said, "Nine."

He laughed harder than he had in quite some time, then he said, "You're right. Nine."

A small breeze crept over the trees, and Maddie pulled her legs closer to her chest at that. He had been rubbing circles into her palm, but stopped when he noticed this action. "Are you cold, baby?" he asked. How long had they been out here? He glanced at his watch, seeing to his great surprise it was already half nine at night.

She didn't answer, but he knew that meant yes, so he said, "Come here." Hesitantly, she rested her head in the crook of his arm as he wrapped his arms around her. Her bent knee rested on his thigh, one of her hands laying on his chest. Though it was much harder in this position, he tilted her head backwards to place another kiss on her lips, making the total, "Ten."

"I love you, too," was the response.

He furrowed his brow. "Come again?" He loved any chance to hear her say that she loved him, but why the 'too' when he hadn't said it to her yet?

"Before I said 'nine', you had said you loved me."

"Did I?" He was so intoxicated by her. She was so...so perfect. Holding her in his arms like this gave him the kind of bliss he hadn't felt with any other person, not even Cho Chang. Maddie was so small, and delicate, and so beautiful. When she nodded, he placed his hand over hers on his chest and said, "Well, I do love you. Very, very much."

"Eleven?" she asked.

He kissed her again, then said, "Eleven."

"What exactly is this counting thing about?"

"Just wait, baby. Tell me more about the stars."

And so, for the next half hour, Maddie talked about the constellations, and Cedric listened to the soothing sound of her voice. She was so enthralled in the constellations and he was so captivated by her that he only managed in, "Twelve," in the rest of their time stargazing, after she pointed out a shooting star and said that Muggles believed in making wishes on them.

At precisely ten, Cedric's watch started to beep. He looked at his wrist and sighed. "Baby, it's ten."

"No. We're on thirteen now."

He grinned, but then he clarified, "It's ten o'clock." His face fell sadly. "I need to get you back home."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

She sat up at that moment, and then he sat up too. Before he would let her stand up, though, Cedric took Maddie's hand (the one that had been on his chest) in his hand, rubbing it with his thumb. They stared into each other's eyes, and then he officially made the total, "Thirteen."

With a grin on her face, Maddie stood up; Cedric followed closely behind. He kept his arm fiercely around her as he walked her up to her doorway. When they finally arrived there, she draped her arms around his neck, and he put his around her waist. He then bent forward slightly in order to lessen their height difference, standing so that they were nose to nose. "I hope you had a good time tonight, baby." He spoke in a whisper, as though afraid someone would overhear.

"I did," she said, as though she had the same fear. "Thank you so much, Cedric."

"You're welcome, Maddie. And this makes..." He kissed her one last time, then broke away and said, "Fourteen. Happy fourteenth birthday, Maddie."

"Thank you," she said. They stood in a tight embrace for a few moments, then Maddie finally said, "I really should go to sleep."

"Alright. Good night, sweetheart. I'll see you again tomorrow."

"Good night, Cedric."

He kissed her nose, then released her from his arms to watch her go into the house. As soon as the door was shut, he Disapparated into his bedroom, stripping out of his clothes and into his pajamas. When he was dressed, he glanced up across the way. A few seconds later, Maddie's bedroom door opened and she flicked the light on, carrying a blue vase with the roses in one hand.

Cedric watched as she set the vase on her dresser, then crossed to her window. She looked up and they made eye contact for a few moments, then Maddie smiled before she shut the curtains. Cedric stared at that window for a few seconds more before he climbed into bed. It wasn't for several minutes that he finally fell asleep to thoughts of the girl next door in his arms...and in his heart.

* * *

**In regards to a review that was left on the last update of this story, if you have any problem whatsoever with the relationship being presented here, I kindly direct you over to my profile to look for the section titled 'In Regards to the _Fearless_ Series'. **

**Anyway, I'm so sorry that this is mainly just a filler, fluffy chapter. The rest of the story is actually going to have substance, I promise! Also, I'm loving spring break so much. I wish break lasted longer than a week, though, but I only have until the fifth of June and then I'm done with high school, and I have graduation on the sixth of June. High school has gone on entirely too long. Can't wait for college. Speaking of, I'm in the room selection process for my new university and everything feels so much more real now. I've chosen my roommate for next year and I'm so excited to meet her. We have a lot in common, including (thank the lucky stars) our love of _Harry Potter_. :) I hope you remember to review.**

**- Hatter of Madness**


	6. The Hogwarts Express

Though it was only a week between Maddie's birthday and the start of term, once she turned fourteen, it seemed to both her and Cedric that the rest of their vacation flew by in a whirl. Before either one knew it, it was September the first, and it was the start of term at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

When their parents left them at the platform (they seemed a bit hesitant to leave their children alone together), Cedric threaded his fingers through Maddie's before bringing her hand to his lips. _Merlin, you're perfect,_ he thought as he let her hand fall to her side once more. He watched her as he began to rub the back of her hand with his thumb, feeling like they had to make up for lost time. He never wanted to let her out of his sight again...but he would have to in just a matter of minutes. Instead of worry about this, he clung fiercely to her hand as they walked together in silence.

Silence was no longer uncomfortable between the two of them. If anything, he appreciated the silence more than when one of them was speaking, because being with Maddie made him feel so tranquil...so at peace. And there was not a single word in the English language to describe how this felt. Why tarnish that feeling with spoken word when there _were_ no words?

Though the platform was crowded, he barely focused on other people, just trying to maneuver their way through the throngs of people. There were the unmistakable scared faces of first years...there were friends who had not seen each other in eight weeks...there were a few familiar faces, but not familiar enough that either of them wanted to stop and chat...

"Hey—Cedric!"

Cedric turned in the direction of the voice, forcing Maddie to pause, too. He turned to her apologetically as he recognized the figure moving towards them. "Sorry...it's Joseph," he said, feeling relieved. He hadn't spoken to his friend all summer and they definitely had quite the catching up to do. "I'll be right back," he promised before stepping away.

Hesitantly he released her hand as he made his way through the groups of students, breaking into a grin when he and Joseph were close. "Hey, Joseph," he said as the two of them hugged one another on the platform.

"I haven't heard from you all summer!" Joseph said as they separated. "I was beginning to think something had happened to you."

As Cedric remembered what had happened that summer—the nightmares, the fights, the lies—he sighed heavily, all traces of a smile gone from his face. "It's complicated."

"Yeah? Tell me about it later. I'm going to assume that you still have your plus one?"

Cedric glanced over his shoulder for a millisecond at Maddie, who was still standing in the same spot he had left her, then back at Joseph, saying, "Were you expecting otherwise?"

"Not from the way that you spent most of last term snogging her," Joseph said, forcing Cedric to blush a brilliant shade of scarlet. He was only semi aware of all the people trying to force their way past the two of them as Joseph continued, "What I _was _expecting was for you to be made Head Boy this year, but I guess that didn't happen."

"It doesn't bother me any, I've"—he suddenly realized what Joseph was saying and furrowed his brow—"how did _you _know that I wasn't made Head Boy?"

Joseph smirked, reached into the pocket of his trousers, and produced a badge that was emblazoned with '_Head_ Boy'. Cedric's mouth nearly dropped open in surprise. Of course, he was so happy for his friend—he had thought two years earlier that it was Joseph who deserved to be a prefect and not him—but was also extremely surprised. With Dumbledore as headmaster, it seemed that being a prefect was a prerequisite for becoming Head Boy or Girl.

"Congratulations!" Cedric said. "You really deserved it."

"Thanks, Cedric," Joseph said, turning a bit pink as well and smiling.

"Do you know who Head Girl is yet?"

"I think someone from Ravenclaw, but I can't be certain on that."

At that, the train's whistle blew, signalling that it was getting ready to leave the station. "Should probably get on the train, yeah?" Joseph asked and Cedric nodded, going off in search of Maddie again. When he finally found her, he grabbed hold on her hand yet again and squeezed it tight, Joseph trailing not far behind them as they boarded. As they got aboard and Joseph headed for the prefect's carriage to fulfill his duties as Head Boy, Cedric realized that now he would have to leave her, yet again, as a seventh year prefect.

He stopped her just as they got on board, saying, "I've got to go to the prefect's carriage now, sweetheart."

"I know," Maddie said a little sadly.

"I'll be back soon, I promise." With that, he held her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers, feeling as she leaned into him, putting her hands on his chest. For a moment, he forgot where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, when...

"Excuse me, Cedric."

He looked up in surprise, and Maddie too turned, to see that Cho Chang was standing before them. Slightly embarrassed, he sidestepped out of her way to let her pass, but she was standing stock still as though waiting for something. "Yes?" he finally asked.

"You two are...still together?" she asked, her voice full of contempt and surprise.

Whilst looking at Cho, Cedric grabbed hold of Maddie's hand once more and squeezed it tight. "Yes, we are," he said in a deadpan. He suddenly wished that he could sit with her and some of their friends, afraid that people still had something to say in regards to their relationship. Maddie was standing very still next to him, so again he began to rub the back of her hand in an attempt to soothe her.

"Oh. Well—congratulations." He couldn't tell why the comment sounded so snide. Hadn't she apologized for all she had done at the end of the school year prior?

"Thank you." Ignoring her, he turned back to Maddie, taking her face in his hands again. "I'll see you later, baby," he said, kissing her forehead before finishing with, "I love you."

"I love you, too, Cedric."

They separated at that, and Maddie took off in one direction, Cedric in the other towards the prefects' carriage. He could hear footsteps trailing behind him, so he glanced over his shoulder to see Cho following him. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"You haven't been made Head Boy this year, have you?"

"No, but I'm still a prefect."

"Who is Head Boy?"

"Joseph Dawson."

He tried to walk faster in order to get away from Cho (not that there was anything wrong with her, but she definitely had seemed plenty cold when she saw him with Maddie), but she continued to follow after him. He finally slowed to a standstill, forcing her to stop dead in her tracks. "Is there any reason that you're following me?" he asked.

"I'm not following you, I'm a prefect, too."

Oh, that was right. Well, he supposed he would just have to ignore Cho the best he could. Merlin knew he'd have to; the look in her eyes said it all. No matter what apology she had offered him and Maddie the year before, she still was having feelings of jealousy toward the two of them. He didn't understand what the problem was.

For the rest of the walk to the prefects' carriage, he remained absolutely silent, listening as Cho fell back into her typical pattern of talking endlessly about herself. Even if they hadn't spoken in months, she acted as though no time had passed since their last interaction. Cedric couldn't help but think that that school year was going to be a nightmare.

* * *

After Hermione and Ron disappeared to go to the prefects' carriage, Harry was forced out of his thoughts as Ginny said, "Come on, if we get a move on we'll be able to save them places."

"Right," he said, following her in the opposite direction that Ron and Hermione had just walked off in. He tried to ignore the watchful eyes that followed him through every carriage they passed through, glad to finally see a familiar face when they ran into Neville Longbottom.

"Hi, Harry," he said, carrying his toad Trevor in one hand. "Hi, Ginny... Everywhere's full...I can't find a seat..."

"What are you talking about?" Ginny asked, who was looking into the compartment directly past Neville. "There's room in this one, there's only Loony Lovegood in here—"

Neville mumbled something about not wanting to disturb her.

"Don't be silly, she's all right."

She slid the door open and Neville followed. Harry, not wanting to be alone, followed after, but froze when he realized that this 'Loony Lovegood' was not alone in this compartment. Sitting directly across from the blonde haired girl, who was holding a magazine (upside down) over her face, was another blonde haired girl staring out the window, who looked up in surprise when the door opened. Harry's green eyes met her identical ones...

"Hi, Luna. Is it okay if we take these seats?" Ginny asked.

The girl called Luna nodded and Ginny thanked her, but Harry remained in the doorway. Ginny was halfway in the compartment when she realized that Harry wasn't following. "Are you coming, Harry?" she asked.

He started to shake his head, feeling his mouth suddenly go very dry. "I—"

Ginny followed his eyes and rolled her own. "Come on, it's only Maddie."

Maddie Lewis blushed and looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Apparently she, too, remembered the awkward relationship that the two of them had had the year prior. Harry mentally cursed himself for the way that he had abruptly severed all ties with her; the least he could have done was be polite and keep her feelings in consideration. He couldn't help but wonder why she wasn't sitting with Cedric or one of her friends from Hufflepuff.

"Had a good summer, Luna?" Ginny asked as Harry and Maddie pointedly avoided eye contact with each other.

"Yes," she said dreamily, staring at Harry intently. "Yes, it was quite enjoyable, you know. _You're _Harry Potter."

"I know I am," Harry said quickly.

Neville chuckled, and Luna's eyes fell on him. "And I don't know who you are."

"I'm nobody," Neville said hurriedly.

"No, you're not. Neville Longbottom—Luna Lovegood. Luna's in the same year as me and Maddie, but in Ravenclaw."

At the mention of Maddie's name, Luna suddenly looked at the other blonde haired girl, who was still avoiding looking Harry in the eye. "Is something the matter, Maddie? I can sense some hostility coming from you."

"No," she said, a little too quickly for Harry's liking. Both of them blushed deep scarlet.

In attempt to change the subject (but really making the situation worse), Ginny asked, "Where's Cedric at, Mad? You two haven't had another falling out, have you?"

"No," she said again, the blush reaching her collarbones and ears now. "Prefects' carriage." Her eyes again fell on her hands that were clasped in her lap; she seemed afraid of looking up. Uncomfortably, she tugged at the long sleeves on her arms, avoiding making eye contact with anyone.

In the awkwardness that followed, Harry stood and announced, "Maybe I should move to a different compartment..."

Ginny sighed, obviously irritated, and rolled her eyes. "Harry, sit down." He obliged, seeming a little bit terrified by the sound of her voice. Maddie's full attention was on the rest of the compartment, her eyes wide with fear. "You two are friends, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"But nothing." Ginny, apparently having no reservations about the matter, finally spoke up, "Look, I get you're jealous of or angry with Cedric or whatever you're feeling"—both of them were blushing even deeper, which Harry didn't think was possible for Maddie—"but can't you just put that aside and have a civil conversation with her?"

Harry paused, staring at Maddie, who was looking out the window again, her skin so red that she looked a bit like a stop sign. The only sound that permeated the silence was the sound of Luna flipping a page in her magazine, apparently bored of the awkwardness and hostility between the two.

Finally, Harry spoke. "How was your summer, Maddie?"

She looked up at him, a bit surprised that he was speaking to her, and said, "Well—it was, um, well, it was... How was yours?"

Obviously, she was evading the question, which Harry wasn't sure he blamed her for. The only problem was that she asked him the exact question she didn't want to answer...and he didn't want to answer it either. He finally settled on, "Long."

Well, the last part of summer wasn't so bad, he reflected. He enjoyed any time that he got to spend with the Weasleys (and away from the Dursleys), even if he had spent it in 12 Grimmauld Place with the (rather loud) painting of Sirius' mother. _That _was definitely better than any time spent at his true home at number 4, Privet Drive.

For a moment, he wondered what Maddie's summers must have been like, considering she had been raised by a witch and a wizard. He couldn't imagine that they were anything like Ron's, since his family was so huge and hers so small. He imagined that she probably spent her nights surrounded by magic that didn't make her bat an eyelash (and never did), perhaps eating sweets the likes of which were sold at Honeydukes in order to beat the heat, maybe spending time with her friends that were close by: Ginny and the Weasleys, Cedric too...

The thought of Maddie and Cedric spending their summer together, laughing and holding hands, kissing and falling deeper in love...

One of Harry's hands clenched into a fist at the thought. He was no longer jealous of the other boy—the summer that he had experienced prevented that quite a bit—but was downright infuriated. Cedric had treated Maddie like an option, begged for her forgiveness... And she had given it to him like it was nothing. While Harry was sure he had to have changed, he couldn't believe Maddie would be so forgiving.

For the next hour, there was very little smalltalk between the four of them. Luna remained silent most of the trip, reading her magazine (Harry struggled to make out the title, which was _The Quibbler_) and ignoring the rest of them. Harry was just beginning to get over his animosity of Cedric when he heard voices outside the compartment...

"Eleanor and Liam said they'd save us seats so as soon as you find Maddie..."

"Found her."

Cedric and one of his friends (Harry didn't know his name, but he could see that he was carrying a Head Boy badge) were waiting outside the door. Cedric's eyes had lit up when he saw Maddie, but his face fell when he saw Harry. "Hello, Harry," he said politely to the younger boy.

"Hi," Harry deadpanned.

"Do you mind if...?" Cedric asked, motioning to Maddie.

"Go for it," Harry said rather quickly. Maddie stood and crossed to Cedric without a word, and the two of them linked fingers before he shut the door and they walked away.

Joseph was walking a few paces ahead of them, looking for the compartment that Liam and Eleanor were in. In the silence and privacy that entailed, Cedric asked Maddie, "So, you and Harry do some catching up?"

She made a noise that Cedric didn't quite have a word for, a noise that sounded similar to a wounded dog or a distressed cat, in reply. He laughed, gently pulling her closer to him as they continued down the train. "Cho and I had a bit of an awkward run in, too, in the prefects' carriage."

Maddie suddenly stopped walking. "You don't still...fancy her, do you?"

"No. Not when I have you."

He knew that she had reason to worry. But when Cho had walked up to them, he had looked at her the same way that he had the first time: as a stranger. There was just something so special about the way that Maddie's hand fit into his, the way that they had conversations with so much ease about _anything_, the way that she looked into his eyes.

Joseph had finally found their friends, so the three of them sat down with them. When Maddie began to lean into Cedric's chest, he let go of her hand to wrap his arm around her shoulders. Holding her in his arms like this made him certain that she was the most important thing in his life.

* * *

Following the start of term feast, Dumbledore stood before the school to give his usual speech. All four of the houses were immediately silenced to hear what he had to say as he began, "Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices. First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students—and a few of our older students ought to know by now too.

"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four hundred and sixty-second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in the corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things, all of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch's office door."

"We have had two changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons; we are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

A polite but unenthusiastic round of applause followed these announcements. It was frankly no surprise to the students anymore that there was a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. It seemed that every year, the old teacher was fired, or quit, or just outright disappeared, and then a new teacher would just pop up. This year's teacher, Professor Umbridge, was easily noticeable from the fluorescent (at least, in contrast to the colors that the other professors wore) pink robes that she was wearing.

Dumbledore continued, "Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the—"

He broke off as a voice off to his side said, "_Hem, hem._"

Professor Umbridge was standing next to him, apparently waiting to say something. Cedric was almost immediately taken by surprise; didn't she know better than to interrupt Dumbledore while he spoke?

"Thank you, Headmaster," she said, in an oddly saccharine voice that didn't quite match her face, "for those kind words of welcome." She cleared her throat once more ("_Hem, hem._") before continuing, "Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say! And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!"

Cedric glanced around the common room, wondering where these 'happy little faces' were. Most people seemed a bit surprised to be spoken to as though they were small children; Edward and Liam were staring at each other as though Professor Umbridge was speaking a foreign language that they couldn't comprehend; down the table a ways, Maddie and her friends were a mixture of very bored and greatly annoyed. At least in Hufflepuff, he could not find one of these so called 'happy' faces.

"I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"

"Bloody fat chance," Edward said in a voice that he seemed to think was a whisper, "I don't want to be dressed up like a six-year-old girl." Liam and John immediately started chuckling, trying very hard to be quieter than Edward had been.

Again, Umbridge made the throat clearing noise she had been using all night: "_Hem, hem._" All talking and laughter immediately subsided. When she continued, she sounded oddly as though she was reciting out of a textbook, rather than speaking to the six-year-olds that Edward had spoken of: "The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction..."

Bored out of his mind, Cedric rested his chin in his hand, staring in the direction of Professor Umbridge but not truly taking in her sight. His eyes were starting to burn from staring at the bright pink robes.

"Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation..."

Cedric's eyes again began to flit around the Great Hall as he tried to find something more interesting to focus his attention on. Most people had given up listening to Professor Umbridge as well; those who still were paying attention appeared to be in a sort of stupor, with glassed over eyes and with mouths slightly agape, appearing like zombies. Even Maddie and her friends were talking amongst themselves, and they didn't seem to be discussing their new teacher.

"Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning whatever practices that ought to be prohibited."

She finally sat down, apparently oblivious to the fact that her audience, too, was oblivious—oblivious to her. Dumbledore began clapping, forcing the school out of their trance. While some tried to join in the applause, Dumbledore put an end to it surprisingly fast when he said, "Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating. Now—as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held on the Quidditch pitch. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff will have tryouts first on the ninth of September, Ravenclaw in the afternoon and Hufflepuff..."

Dumbledore finished up his announcements and excused the school to go to bed. Cedric, as a prefect, was responsible for helping the first years find their way around the school, along with the prefects from fifth and sixth year, and Joseph had to patrol the school as Head Boy, so Joseph exited the Hall quickly and Cedric remained behind to collect the first years.

By the time the two of them returned to the common room, they were both thoroughly exhausted. "I just can't wait to see my bed..." Joseph was in the middle of saying as he tapped the barrels outside the entranceway in order to gain entrance, though both of them were stopped dead in their tracks in the common room. Other than two people who were seated across the room, the room was deserted, but it was the identities of those two people that caught them off guard.

Maddie and Eleanor, both of their girlfriends, were sitting on the sofa before the fire speaking to one another quietly. Neither looked the least bit pleased.

"What are you still doing up?" Cedric asked, coming to stand next to Maddie and wanting more than anything to get to bed.

She looked up at him and stood herself, appearing more and more anxious by the second. "We just thought we should warn you two... It's about Edward."

Cedric and Joseph exchanged confused glances before Cedric asked, "What about Edward?"

"He was saying some things about you and Harry Potter earlier," Eleanor explained, "scared the poor first years right to the core. Ernie Macmillan—the new fifth year prefect—he was practically beside himself trying to get them to hush up."

"What kind of things was he saying?" He wasn't so sure he wanted to hear the answer. If it was about him and Harry, it couldn't be good news.

Maddie, looking extremely uncomfortable, answered, "He was saying that what happened between the two of you in the Final Task of the Triwizard Tournament was a hoax to try to scare everyone."

The four of them fell silent with this announcement. It seemed to Cedric that Edward would never be satisfied when it came to him, and this little development seemed to prove just that. What reason did he have to not believe what Cedric and Harry had said?

"Did he say why?" Joseph finally asked in order to break the silence.

"I don't know," Eleanor answered. "He just thought, well... No one but you and Harry really know what happened, and even then... You were unconscious. He thinks you would have agreed with any explanation that somebody gave you..."

Cedric's blood was boiling as Eleanor cut herself off. Sure, he might have been unconscious, but he wasn't a bloody idiot, and he certainly wasn't gullible, either. Harry claimed that he had seen He Who Must Not Be Named that night, and Cedric had been able to see everything that had happened—even if he hadn't really experienced it firsthand himself. He had had nightmares for the better part of two months since then, forced to relive the things he saw...

"Do you two think...?" Cedric started.

Maddie seemed to immediately understand what he was saying, as she was quick to respond with, "You know that I believe you."

"Eleanor?" Cedric asked, looking directly past Maddie at the other girl, who had also risen to her feet.

"Absolutely. Nobody besides Edward seems to think the opposite."

There was another painful silence. Clearly, nobody knew the proper thing to say. What _were _they to say to such a heavy topic?

"Well...we'll deal with him," Cedric finally said, wrapping an arm around Maddie's waist before dropping his voice down to a whisper. "You should be getting to bed, sweetheart."

Joseph, too, crossed to Eleanor and embraced her, saying goodnight to her as well. Cedric, paying no mind to the other couple, whispered into Maddie's lips, "Goodnight, Mad."

"Goodnight," she said back equally as quietly just moments before Cedric placed a goodnight kiss on her lips.

"I love you," he whispered, and she repeated it back before the two of them finally parted ways; she and Eleanor made their way to the girls' dormitories, and Cedric and Joseph to the boys'.

On the stairs to the boys' dormitories, Joseph asked, "Do you really think that Edward was saying those things about you and Harry earlier?"

Cedric sighed heavily, already dreading getting to their dorm. "You know how he is. He was constantly stirring up trouble with me last year. Doesn't surprise me that he's at it again—but over this?"

They were already outside their dorm. Both of them hesitated for a moment before Joseph finally worked up the nerve to open the door, where they were greeted by the sounds of arguing between John and none other than Edward.

"Look, I get what you're saying," John said very loudly as he buttoned his pajama shirt, looking extremely red in the face, "but you don't know what happened any better than I do, and I believe—"

"You'd believe anything that comes out of his mouth!" Edward said, but was immediately silenced when the door closed behind Cedric and Joseph. "Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear..." He jumped up off his bed, crossing to Cedric. Again, he opened his mouth to speak, his voice sounding very hostile for such a simple question. "So. How was your summer?"

"Exhausting," Cedric said back plainly.

"Yeah? I figured it'd be a little hard to keep up a story like the one you told us all last year."

"Look, if this is about what happened during the Tournament last year..."

"That's exactly what this is about. You know my mum didn't want me to come back to Hogwarts this year? Said it wasn't important anyway, because I'm of age now? And why do you think that is?"

"I'm going to assume it's because of me," Cedric said coldly. If Edward was going to be so short with him, it only seemed fair that he return the favor.

"Afraid You Know Who is going to attack me if I decide to take a stroll around the grounds. I think it's rubbish. You Know Who's been dead for years, anyone could tell you that. Even Harry Potter could tell you that. I don't know what you two are after—"

"I'm telling you, I know what I saw that night," Cedric snapped. "And what I saw was a deranged wizard who was trying to kill me and Harry."

"Why would he need to kill Harry? He obviously didn't succeed the first time." Edward took a step forward with this question, so Cedric reciprocated as he spoke next.

"Trying to finish the job? How am I supposed to know?"

"And why would he be trying to kill you if you've never done anything to him?" Another step forward, plus Edward's voice grew louder.

"I was in the way of him getting to Harry, okay?"

Cedric's voice raised too; they were so close to each other now that it was not possible for them to get any closer. Instead, they settled on raising their voices more as they shouted at one another, leaving John, Liam, and Joseph speechless...and looking a bit terrified.

"So how did you come out alive?"

"That was a bit of dumb luck, and for it, I owe Harry my life. Look, Edward, you don't have any right to be saying these things because I'm telling you, I know what I saw. And you have no idea what I've been through the last two months..."

"Oh, yeah, snogging your girlfriend while crying about some dead wizard must be extremely challenging..."

"I hardly even _saw_ my girlfriend this summer. And I'm telling you, You Know Who is _alive. _You don't know how this feels, having nightmares night after night because some crazy man was trying to kill you. My parents wouldn't even let me leave the house because they thought..."

"They thought what? They have a menace for a son?"

Cedric shoved Edward backwards, snapping, "Don't you _dare _call me that."

"I can do what I bloody well please!"

"I know that since you're so bent on making me out to be a liar!"

"The Minister of Magic himself said that You Know Who isn't back!"

"And he's the one that's lying!"

"_Will both of you knock it off!_"

Liam's voice made both of them froze, their voices coming to a standstill along with them. He had stood up off his bed and was then crossing the room to them, forcing the two boys apart from one another. "Look, both of you, give it up," he said, sounding exasperated—and exhausted. "I don't want to have to go an entire school year listening to _this _from you."

Edward was glaring at Liam the same that he had just been looking at Cedric. "Will you just tell Cedric that you agree with me and—"

"You agree with him?" Cedric asked incredulously, his face screwed up in frustration.

Liam sighed, suddenly going from very annoyed to very uncomfortable. "I'm not saying I do and I'm not saying I don't. Look... We have no proof that what you and Harry say you saw happened, and we also don't have proof that it didn't. I don't know where I stand." Both boys were shocked into silence. "Can we discuss this later? We have class tomorrow and I would actually like to get some sleep."

Without another word, Cedric crossed to his bed and started sorting through his clothes, trying to find some pajamas. Edward simply walked to his four poster bed and drew the curtains tight around him, blocking himself from view. Cedric sat on his bed next to Joseph's, who was already changed and was stowing away his clothes. Joseph finally noticed that Cedric was looking at him and glanced up. "Yeah?"

Cedric sighed, lowering his voice extremely low as not to draw any attention to him. "You believe me on this, don't you?"

"You know I do. Edward will come around."

Frankly, Cedric wasn't so sure, but he got into bed and tried to force himself to fall asleep, his head in a whirl. He was dangerously afraid that he was going to wake the four of them up with another nightmare, the same that he had done to his parents most of the summer. Still, he shut his eyes, his head pounding as he wondered who else didn't believe what he and Harry had to say about what had happened the school year prior, fairly certain that they were no friends of his.

* * *

**Okay. Wow. Heavy subject in this chapter. Long break between chapters. I'm sorry. You've heard this speech several times. I know.**

**Last night was my grad night so I didn't go to school today, since I was up from 6:30 yesterday morning to 5:00 AM this morning with absolutely no sleep and was exhausted. I just went home and rested, and since I didn't have school, I decided to update this.**

**Anyway, I don't have much to say here except for an important message. I'm going to try my hardest to do more frequent updates once I graduate from high school (which will be on the sixth of June, as aforementioned). Before then, though, I've got a lot of assignments to finish up, then after I have my orientation for college, and then I have a very exciting announcement. I applied to a prestigious fine arts program for four weeks this summer and I was accepted. So, for four weeks I will be at a creative writing program and will be extremely busy. This will be July 12 through August 8. I'm super excited to go, but I know it might interfere with my designated fanfiction time. I'm going to try as much as I can before then. After that, I have my going away party on the 16th of August, I'll be on vacation from the 19th to the 24th of August, and then I will be moving into my dorm sometime around the 27th of August. Extremely busy schedule. I'm just glad that I don't have anymore AP classes or tests to worry about, so there's that on the bright side. If you've managed to stick around since the last update, thank you times a million, and please remember to review.**

**- Hatter of Madness**


End file.
